Day 2

December 22^nd 2007

We landed in Peru at about 8-ish this morning. Our next connection to Santiago (via Buenos Aires) is at 2:00 pm. Another 6 hour layover = Aimlessly wandering around the airport. We got breakfast at Manacaru. We then perused (haha!!) around a Peruvian handicrafts store. I don’t know if it’s because Christmas is around the corner or if Peruvian people are very religious in general but the store is packed with artifacts depicting the nativity scene. We proceeded to find a tiny massage station where we both indulged in a nice long massage (We have 6 hours to kill …. What else are we supposed to do???) We try to leave a tip for our respective masseuse’s but the hostess just keeps returning us the money back. She finally gets it after elaborate hand gestures from Kanak and smiles and accepts the money.

Kanak is reading “A Dog Year – by Jon Katz” and learning more and more how much of a Collie Luka is. Meanwhile I am trying to hopelessly connect to any available wireless network (in vain) – wireless por favor!!

We then proceeded to catch our next flight, which was to Santiago via Buenos Aires. Our one hour in-plane layover was anything but interesting. We killed time playing Battleship. Kanak sunk all my battleshipsL. We got to Santiago at around midnight. We picked our bags and headed to find a cab. Two suitcases filled the trunk of the small KIA we were riding. The third suitcase had to be hoisted atop the car and secured with rope. Our 1.5 hour ride to Vina Del Mar was interesting because our very old driver would stop at random locations to go take one (only one) puff of a cigarette. Once we got to Vina Del Mar we spent an hour just driving around because our driver had no idea where Hotel Moterilla was. We finally found it (phew!!! I think our driver was more relieved than us)

Once in the room I was dying to take a shower and opened our bags only to discover that my shampoo has leaked on all my toiletries and more importantly on my hair dryer and straightener. I was devastated as I sat there rinsing anything I could salvage while throwing out my ‘oh so precious hair dryer and straightener’. We finally got to bed at 4:00.