A Long Lesson in Patience
Trip Start
Jul 02, 2009
1
2
14
Trip End
Jul 18, 2009
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Tacna,
Peru
Friday, July 3, 2009
We arrived safely in Lima around midnight. After spending an hour or so going through immigration/customs, we picked up our luggage and played the redlight/greenlight game. It's supposedly a random selection for baggage. If the light turns red when you push it, you have to send your baggage through their x-ray machine and answer questions about what you're carrying. If not, you're good to go. We were practically the last ones to claim luggage and go through the last part of customs, so there weren't many people in line at the LAN check-in counter when we got there. As if we had to worry about time...
Fortunately (or unfortunately), the Lima airport has many food and coffee places, including a Starbucks, Papa John's Pizza, Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's. It didn't matter that we hadn't changed money - they did the conversion for us, and we paid with US dollars. As we were making ourselves comfortable, we noticed many backpackers spending the night with their camping mats and mummy bags on the floors near their gates. We took over a small part of the food court which, fortunately for us, had just been cleaned. Several people took naps across chairs or even rolled out blankets to sleep on the floor. Israel took over dominion of the world in Risk. A good part of the group played the alphabet game with band or singer names. By mid-morning, we were all a bit loopy.
Our 9AM flight included a short stop in Cuzco, but we only got to see it from the plane. By the time we made it to Tacna around noon, we were ready to get to the church in Ciudad Nueva (CN), settle in and take a nap. We settled, we ate, and then we went straight to work! The guys went to Nueva Jerusalem (NJ) to shovel out and pick out a ditch for the church wall there. The girls hung out at CN and took turns sanding the bars on the church windows which have rusted over time. Everyone seemed to be involved in getting ready for the wedding which took place Saturday night.
CN has Bible study for the youth Friday nights, so we had a somewhat late Once (late night meal) and headed off to bed exhausted but ready for a new day :)
