The time has come

This is just a quick closing post. I should have written it over the holidays, but at the time I was limited by the unending yet limiting limits of dial-up internet.

Well, I guess the first thing I should say is SURPRISE! I have known since sometime in November that I would be coming home on my scheduled flight the 15th of December. However, I decided that instead of sharing the news via blogger, I would hold back, only tell a few select people, and surprise everyone else. It was fun. Actually, if you look you will notice that the last few posts I made were actually from Canada.

Anyway, let's rewind shall we. On monday the 11th of December, I left Quito on a marathon bus trip to Lima where I would catch my flight on the 15th. The days leading up to this, I received emails every day from Mum saying "don't miss your flight, check your flight, don't miss your flight"... haha, oh she of little faith.

So, as I was saying, I got a bus monday at 5pm that would take me south again to Loja, where I would again catch a bus across the border. I had the times planned perfectly. Unfortunately, for some reason unknown to myself and everyone else awake on the bus, the route took us all the way to the southwest coast below Guayaquil, then turned back straight east to Loja. This is insane!! To give you a visual, Loja is basically located directly south of Quito near the Peruvian border.... no one wants to go this route! To complicate things further, in some little town just before the turn back east our driver decided that this bus would not be strong enough to scale the mountains ahead and we were left waiting for nearly an hour for a replacement bus. Eventually I made it to Loja, though about two hours later (9am) than I had calculated. Because I missed the morning bus across the border, I had to wait maybe 3 hours for the afternoon bus. This was fine, I still had plenty of time. The bus across the border was about 7 or 8 hours. In Peru there are always buses leaving at all hours of the day and night so I figured if I was arriving around 10pm there would definately be a direct bus to Lima. And, sure enough I was right. There was a 10 pm bus to Lima. The unfortunate thing is that I wasn't on it. Nope, as my luck would have it, the time it took to get my bag and find a taxi and get myself to the next bus station was just long enough that I arrived 12 minutes late. That was it. I lost my marathon. Anyway, I found a dodgy (it wasn't that bad, Mum) place to stay for the night and (since there were no day buses oddly enough) I would get the night bus the following night, Wednesday the 13th.

Now this is something that had me a bit confused, and its a good thing I looked into it. On the ticket the travel agent had printed out for me the day I bought the ticket it said that my return flight would be from Lima Thursday the 14th at 10:40. But then, when I checked the e-ticket she had emailed me, it said that my flight was Thursday 14th at 10:40 arriving in Toronto some 23 hrs later. AND THEN, when I checked online it said that my flight was Thursday at 02:00, and nothing more. So, if you can see my problem I had three possible flights. Let me just break it down.

(1) Thursday 14th at 10:40 pm.
(2) Thursday 14th at 10:40 pm, with no stops, yet arriving almost a full day later.
(3) Thursday at 2 am but do they mean Thursday morning (ie Wednesday night) or the night of Thursday (thus friday morning and only a few hours later than the original time). Since the other flights had all been late Thursday night. Are you following?


Anyway, I eventually called Air Canada from where I was staying in Piura (in the North of Peru, a 16hr bus ride to Lima) to clarify the issue. And the issue was clarified! The nice man who took my call told me that if I was not at the Lima airport by 11pm that very same night I would miss my flight home (thus making my flight 2am wednesday night, aka thursday 14th at 02:00).

In the end this kinda turned out nicely. I was able to book a 6pm flight from Piura that would take me to the Lima airport where I simply waited a few hours until my flight. I avoided all complications and possible dangers getting around Lima.

Anyway, after almost 3 full days in transit I arrived again in freezing cold Toronto (its all relative!). My Uncle Fergus picked me up and a few days later where I returned to Meaford to surprise Emily and Mary who I had successfully (or so they have led me to believe) tricked into thinking I was gone indefinately. It was good fun. Emily you were the best!

Anyway, I'm happy to be home. A little worried about the lack of winter, but it will come around.

So this is it. This is the last blog. Thanks for reading.

Ok, so I lied, it wasn't "quick". But when have I ever kept to that promise? You should know better.

Ta-ta
Laura.