Well folks, I am officially back from my absolutely amazing trip in Peru! I couldn't just leave this blog hanging after my post about Lake Titicaca, so I'm writing these final posts about the last few days there and my whole experience in general. Sorry it's late.
It was a really weird feeling getting back to Cuzco after our Puno trip...it felt like home! All the familiar sights, sounds, smells...and the fact that everybody was speaking Spanish was even strangely comforting!! (I can at least understand some Spanish, whereas on the islands people speak Quechuan, which is entirely different.) Cuzco really had become our home away from home. the next morning, for instance, we were sitting down for breakfast when Yoni walked in the room, saw us, and flipped out - she gave us hugs and asked how our trip was and was just generally excited to see us! It was great :) I love that lady.
For our last couple days in the city, we walked around, took pictures, got some more ice cream, etc etc. We WERE going to go get cuy (fried guinea pig) with Matt, but our plans were foiled. We were planning to go up to the San Pedro market and get juice, and then ask Carmen the juice lady where in Cuzco is a cheap place to get cuy (because it's pretty dang expensive in Cuzco. lame.), but we found out that the market was closed for some big parade. Those Peruvians and their parties. Anywho, we decided to head up to the Plaza de Armas to see what all the ruckus was about, and were greeted by a throng of multi-colored dancing people. There were dozens of different groups of dancers making their way through the streets. We stayed up there for a while, watching and taking pictures, and generally just being tourists.
On our last morning, we packed up our bags, said goodbye to Matt, and spent the very last of our soles at the Artesenal. We then came back and had lunch with the remainder of our roomies, and then said goodbye to them as well. Yoni went out and got us a cab, we took pictures, and said our goodbyes. Right as we were pulling out of the parking lot, however, the cab driver stopped and motioned for Yoni to come over. They began talking furiously in Spanish, and Yoni got in the cab with us. We were pretty confused. The radio was on, and I could pick out the words "airport", "explosion", "evacuating passengers", and "bomb". Yoni looked all worried, and Kassie and I were getting a little freaked out. We finally got to the airport and got out of the taxi, and we saw that the gates to the airport were closed with a bunch of people surrounding it. Looking through the slits of the walls we could see all the passengers standing around in the parking lot, and they were all taking pictures of something, but we couldn't see what it was. So we were all confused and wondering what the heck was going on. Finally, an airport official wandered over and he spoke great English and he told us that there had been a protest at the airport earlier that day, and that afterwards they had found a bomb package (a grenade and a stick of dynamite, we found out after) in the restroom. So they evacuated the airport, and took the package right outside to this little grassy area to take care of it. So they kept scooting us farther and farther from the gate in case the bomb went off. After waiting for maybe 20 minutes, they finally told us we could go inside and that the problem was taken care of. Yoni walked us into the airport and hugged us goodbye. I absolutely love her for coming with us and making sure we were ok.
The rest of our trip home went without incident. (Though we're pretty sure we spotted a couple spies in the Lima airport.) We arrived in Salt Lake the next day, safe and sound! :)
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