Three-Flight Travel Day

Thursday, November 21, 2019
Dulles International Airport, Virginia, United States
After months of planning (thanks Sue): e-mails, phone calls, research, and packing; the day of our annual Thanksgiving family trip finally arrived. This year’s bonus is that Bligh is joining the three amigos.
The adventure this year, our sixth international trip with Brennan, is taking us to Peru to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and explore the cities of Cusco and Machu Picchu (aka Aguas Calientes).
We rendezvoused at Dan’s Station 29 in McLean, then he drove us to Dulles. He made arrangements for us to leave Dave & Sue’s car at the station. Check-in for us went without a hitch, a woman in front of us was not so lucky! Her bag was way too big and she ended up totally repacking and having to discard a bunch of stuff. 
Nothing new, Brennan was hungry, so he got a Five Guys bacon cheeseburger. Bligh, Sue and Dave feasted on boiled eggs and apple slices; had to clean out the fridge before we left for 10 days! 
Our itinerary had us leaving on Avianca Airlines at 3:15, (actually pushed away from the gate at 3:05) to San Salvador, to Lima and lastly, on to Cusco. Scheduled arrival in Cusco is 7:00am on the 22nd, yes, departure was on the 21st. 
Our flight to San Salvador was a little ahead of schedule, but was not the most comfortable. We had a screaming 3-year-old behind us who didn’t appear to be tired or sick, just ill-behaved. Besides his screaming, the plane was really stuffy and hot. We had a nice snack of a lime-chicken wrap, a cranberry/grain salad, chocolate cookies and wine. By the time we arrived into San Salvador, we needed fresher air and a walk. 
We walked the length of the terminal a few times, stopping in a few souvenir shops and admiring an art exhibit displaying some unusual textile nests. Obviously, San Salvador grows some good coffee which was showcased in the shops and cafes. Bligh ordered a latte which we all shared. It was quite good. We also stopped by a Diana shop where we bought some of our favorite snacks that we had come to like while in Costa Rica. We were able to amuse ourselves long enough to board our next flight to Lima.
We took a risk by choosing seats leaving the middle seat open and it paid off. We got an entire row of six for the four of us. The plane had much better air quality and no screaming children. One thing we had never seen was the earphone plug-ins are actually on your seat behind you? 
Our meal service was beef/rice/zucchini, a green salad and cookie. Again, wine and Bligh opted for Johnny Walker Red!
The flight is about 4 hours which makes it hard to sleep when it includes a meal service. 
Sue and Brennan were able to get about an hour of shut-eye on the flight, not nearly enough!  Customs and baggage claim weren’t too bad in Lima, and we had a nice diversion in the customs line as the line was filled with CARP futbol fans who started singing their fight song and the cheer spread throughout the crowd.  A nice pick-me-up to keep us going at 2am.  
Oddly, after collecting our bags, we had to exit the airport and come back in to recheck our bags.  Seamless process, but certainly unexpected.  Brennan spread out on one of the only remaining spots and was instantly asleep as we waited for our flight to Cusco.  Noteworthy - the airport was as busy at 2am as most are during more normal hours.  Thankfully (and surprisingly) everything was open so the non-sleeping trio had some coffee (cheaper than the $9 water (?!?!?!) and leftover cookies from the flight. 

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