Stranded in Lima

We are currently stranded in Lima after a 16 hour bus ride and then missing our flight to Cajamarca :(  Oh where to begin...

Our besties (and inspiration for our trip) Jen & Carlos were planning a trip to Peru to visit his family, so Dan & I jumped at the chance to fly out to meet them.  We bought our tickets through Peruvian Airlines about a month ago, and on Tuesday we get word that the government has shut down this airline for 90 days due to "poor" plane conditions!  See article here.  So we go down to get a refund and they tell us that they will only issue a refund on the same day that we are supposed to fly out (what?!)  As a result of this policy people were rioting outside their office because they were not going to be able to get their money back.  On a side note, can I just say that the idea of waiting in a line for your turn is really an American idea, and that in other countries they just squeeze their way in.  This is so frustrating and I just wish there were a teacher around cause I would totally tell on them!  Anyways...we had a connecting flight with a different airline so we couldn't wait around for this, so with the help of our Spanish teachers (and a whole lot of paperwork) we were able to get a refund early and then just plan to take a bus for this leg of our trip.  So we catch our bus to Lima and things started looking up because they bus was awesome!

The seats are twice the size of airplane seats and they reclined all the way back (not to mention they had wifi, tv and 2 meals...not too shabby).  We got in at 9:00 this morning and, thinking that we didn't have to be at the airport until 3:00, we relaxed at a cafe.  We get to the airport, and thinking that we were 2 hours early, were in absolutely no rush.  We get up at the front of the line, and as it turns out, our flight actually departed at 3:30 and they had already stopped issuing boarding passes 30 mins early!  After little debate, we accepted our fate and booked seats on the flight tomorrow morning (of course they were way more expensive because it was next day and the airline hiked up their prices since the other airline is shut down).  After all this, it turns out that the government is lifting it's ban on Peruvian Airlines and they should be back in action within a couple days.  Needless to day, we have had a bad run of luck!  Hopefully everything goes off without a hitch tomorrow and we get to Cajamarca to see J & C.  I keep telling Dan that one day we'll look back on this and laugh...he thinks not ;)

P.S.  just found out that the airline actually booked Dan & I on separate return flights...the saga continues!