"Out of the way, VIP coming through"

As all good trips must begin, our travel adventures fell nothing short of exciting. Everyone arriving at the airport at 9:00 am with smiles and enthusiasm seemed to foreshadow a fantastic day of seam-less travel to beautiful Peru. Well, we were wrong...

To start it all every single passport scanner in the check-in area was down, so a manual entry of all information from your gender to you nationality was not easy. A nice woman helped us through the long process of checking in our group of five, but soon mysteriously "disappeared" when the computer system reset and we had to start all over. The rest of check-in went fairly smoothly, but of course my notorious over-packing talents kicked in. Despite my bag being 51 lbs. after removing a pair of jeans, we were good to go!

Things were looking up when we were taking from the back of the security line to the front of another. Security was easy and smooth and we were to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Well, surprise again, Deb pointed out that our gate was set to go to Toronto, and as tempting as Canada sounds this time of year, we decided we should wrangle Pastor Dale (who we had somehow lost along the way) and find our correct gate. Finally seated at the correct gate, it was time for an airport selfie!

Our fun was soon cut short as a "slight delay" turned into an hour and a half maintenance project. Finally on our way to Houston, we had to give the pilot directions to fly a little faster, our layover was tight. How tight? We touched down at Housten at 3:15 and our flight boarded at 3:00 for a 3:45 departure. Yikes! We sprinted off the plane, and caught the tram to the next concourse. 

What happened next can only be explained as the first true act of god on this trip. An angel from above must have seen us frantically racing to our gate which was, of course, one of the farthest possible gates to walk to. A cart driver appeared out of nowhere and told us to get on. After running this far, we weren't too hesitant to get on. We embarked on a racing journey through the airport, with the driver yelling phrases such as "Out of the way, VIP coming through". We made it to our gate in a knick of time and raced down the jetway for the next leg of our journey.

Don't worry, we had time for a cart-selfie!

(Blurry because we were going so fast!)

The 6 hour flight to Lima was very easy. Customs and immigration took some waiting, and some weariness on why our patch-work "family" was entering the country. With another miracle, our bags and even our box of bells was waiting for us at the baggage claim.  But it doesn't end here, and why would it? It was only 12:30! After a short walk around from the exit to the entrance, we met up with Pastora Ofelia and luckily the airline let us check-in for our 5:00am flight.

The night concluded with a visit to the cafe, at which I am writing from right now. Of course, Pastor Dale had to have his "pye de manzana" or Apple pie. 

With a long day behind us, and a flight in 3 hours, this blog post is making it in right under the wire. Goodnight? Goodmorning? Whatever it is, it's time to get some sleep!

Full disclaimer: this post was composed by a high school student at 2:00am at a cafe in Peru. Please disregard all errors.

Thus today's adventures of Ben Beyond the Bubble