More Delays

James >> The day, or the second part of the 36 hour epic journey began on a bus. Arrival at Antofagasta and finding a taxi to the airport was uneventful. Arriving at the airport around 2am, we had a bit of a wait in the airport until our 5:45 flight, but no big deal, we watched a movie. We completed the normal, abeit some what relaxed immagration process and boarded the plane. Then we waited and waited and waited.(Kathryn >> The 2 year old next to me passed the time by kicking everything in reach; the seat in front, me, it's mother...) Then finally the pilot made an announcement, apparently he couldn't get the hand break off. The plane then taxied a short way, before returning to the terminal, several engineer-y type people boarded, scratched their heads and then we were asked to get off the plane. After a second hour of waiting, after disembarking the plane, we boarded again and finally took off. We arrived in Lima and unloaded from the plane amongst the army helicopters, we had obviously missed our connection, LAN turned out to be spectacularly efficient, rebooked our flights, gave us 4 meal vouchers and phone cards. A bit of a problem (all be it small) presented itself, we had a transfer to the hotel booked, but obviously we were not on the flight. We

had booked all this though LAN so you would think that would be a simple fix, apparently not. They gave us a phone card and a number to call. We were on the phone for an hour before we gave up. Kathryn put her grumpy pants on at this stage and told the people they had to fix it. After some free food (all be it crappy fast food) they did indeed fix it
The flight to Cusco was impressive, huge mountains with little villages. We landed in a deep valley, which given the impressive terrain surrounding us was a surprise, there were not many other spots with enough flat land! Once we got to our hotel (that had rates showing US $400/night... fortunately not what we paid) we finally slept. Kathryn forced us up and out of bed to go and eat dinner. The food was fantastic, or maybe its that we were just sick of crappy Chilean food. The restaurant we chose was rated highly on trip advisor - deservingly so: dessert served in a dried cocoa shell! Life in Peru was certainly looking better than life in Chile.