Yesterday was, by all accounts, one of the craziest travel days of our lives.  And amidst all of it, the one theme that surfaced was the goodness of mankind!  It all started in Chicago when our flight to Toronto (yes, our cheapest flight path took us from Chicago>Toronto>Lima) was delayed.  We only had about an hour and a half for our connection as it was, so any delay was cutting things pretty close.  Karen wisely asked the United Airlines employees if there was any way they could help us while we waited during the delay.  There were no other flights going out on time, but they were able to move us from the back of the plane to the row just behind first-class.  At that point we were both concerned about getting to Lima on time because Sofi arrived on a different flight about two hours before us.  After the plane landed, Karen and I started bobbing and weaving past the first-class passengers as we sprinted into the terminal in true Amazing Race style.  Our faith and prayers paid off as our arrival gate happened to be very close to the international connections area, which then led us to our final gate.  We sweated our way into the gate as the final group of passengers was boarding!  Karen’s decision to get us moved up was crucial because we never would have made it behind 30 more rows of people getting off the plane.  We felt victorious as we boarded the plane, but that feeling was about to be whisked away once we got to Lima…

At about 2:45am local time (same as US Eastern time) we landed in Lima, Peru. Making our way through customs, we went to talk with the SENASA office, which is in some respects the Peruvian equivalent of the USDA.  In our minds the conversation went as follows: “where do we collect our dog?” followed by “oh, she’s right over here good sir.”  We had done our research ahead of time and even had our host in Peru speak with the airport to collect the details of how everything would work.  However, things did not go as we had planned and we had to roll with a handful of punches.  If old school (pre-biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear) Mike Tyson had been in the ring with us, those punches would have knocked us out by about 6am.   But as crazy as the next part of this story goes, everything happens for a reason and we fully understood that after the commotion ended and we could properly reflect on the situation.

What happened next took place over the course of 12 hours, so I’ll save most of the details for the memoir (coming in the fall of 2015…just kidding).  Instead, let’s focus on a countdown of the top five Lowlights and Highlights between the hours of 3am and 3:45pm, when we took off on the flight that replaced the original 5am flight we had booked.

Top 5 Lowlights:

5.  12 hours and a missed flight…enough said.

4.  Karen sitting in our cab by herself (without me or the cab driver, to be mentioned later in the Highlights section) for two hours in the loading dock at the cargo area.

3.  We were operating on limited plane sleep and hadn’t eaten or drank anything since arriving in Lima.  But, if I’m planning to be on Survivor, the training has to start sometime!

2.  Being able to see Sofi in her crate on two separate occasions, but being told on both occasions that we didn’t have all of the proper signatures and paperwork to claim her.

1.  Five round trips between the airport and the cargo warehouse, with intermittent trips between eight different offices within the cargo warehouse.  Of these trips, several of them proved completely useless as we didn’t have the information we needed from the other offices to get proper approvals. This also resulted in an additional $260 paid to these parties.*

*A future post will outline the various costs we’ve incurred for bringing Sofi on this adventure.

Top 5 Highlights (to end positively as our experience did):

5.  I ran with our cab driver from the cargo warehouse to the airport because traffic was so bad that running was faster.  If you know my passion for running, this was a pleasant (and sweaty) surprise!

4.  Eating Papa John’s and annihilating two liters of water shortly before our flight to Cusco.

3.  Our Peruvian host, Manuel, spending half the day at the airport because we were unable to reach him by phone to let him know we missed our original flight.  After spending half the day waiting for us, he was completely positive upon picking us up and told us to make no mention of the difficulties.  Instead, he gave us local herbal tea to help with the altitude (11,000 ft. in Cusco). What a host!

2.  Karem (no relation to Karen, though her name is the Spanish translation of Karen), our angel from Lan Airways.  Her résumé included the following: walking outside to find us a cab driver to ensure we weren’t ripped off, holding our bags for us behind the counter while we ran all over everywhere, booking us standby on a later flight at no additional cost, calling our host Manuel to inform him of what happened, and calling our cab driver before she left work at 11am to make sure we had completed our mission.

1.  Our cab driver, Raul, who stayed with us for seven hours during this crazy adventure!  SEVEN HOURS.  He was a Godsend and though he spoke little English, Karem told him what we needed to do.  Raul was the one speaking with every contact at the offices we encountered, and he led us every step of the way until we got Sofi.  As a matter of fact, he actually told us (via translation from Karem) that he wasn’t going to leave until Sofi was in our possession.  Wow.  After Sofi had been released to us, we found him feeding her dog food and water, which I can only guess he produced out of thin air.

The moral of the story?  People are inherently good.  The main purpose of our journey is to discover that truth all over the world, and the message came pretty early in Peru.  Crazy things will happen in life and if you maintain a positive attitude and have faith, everything will always work out for the best.