I left home on Sunday, and arrived at my grandparents' house in Lima on Sunday - that hasn't happened for a fair while!
I woke up at 5.29am - given that my alarm was set for 5.30, I thought that it made sense to get up there and then, plus I wouldn't have to worry about my alarm waking up Christopher (I'd said goodbye to him the night before), who was asleep in the next room. Mum was already awake when I came downstairs - I had a banana, double-checked that I had everything, then we took my things out to the car. Dad was awake by now, so I went to say goodbye to him, then to Sammy the dog, then Mum and I set off to the airport.
Once we got to Gatwick, things were plain sailing from there on - checked in, sent the luggage off, lavender oil and hand gel in a clear bag, then it was time to say goodbye to Mum, the through customs. I had two hours before my flight was due to leave, so I bought a Logic Puzzles book and worked on that until my flight was called.
The first leg of the journey was a flight to Madrid - I read 'The Subtle Knife' on the plane (Sumaiya had given me the His Dark Materials trilogy), then 2 and a half short hours later, there we were landing in Madrid. A short internal bus from the plane to the airport, and with only 50 minutes until the plane to Lima was due to leave, I dashed through the airport, rucksack bouncing on my back, made it through customs - then found myself at the back of a long queue for the Lima flight. It was 45 minutes before I even reached the plane, and we ended up leaving about 40 minutes late.
That plane journey was fairly uneventful - the seat next to me started off empty, then a teenage girl came over and only turned to me to ask if this plane was going straight to Lima. I got relatively excited when the stewards brought over headphones - then I learned that they were charging 3 euros for them, and that we'd have to return them at the end of the flight. There was a very small range of films, so I turned them down, and 'watched' the films in silence. I finished 'The Subtle Knife' and made a start on 'The Amber Spyglass', did some more logic puzzles, followed the path of the plane on the screen of somebody in front of me, went on a short walk, dozed for about an hour, munched on Haribo and potatoes, wrote up my Language and Thought notes - and so passed the next 12 hours. It's a fairly long flight across the ocean, then across Brazil and the Amazon!
Finally at 9.15pm (2.15am GMT), we arrived in Peru. I had an aisle seat, but could just about see out of the window at the lights of Lima, the boats by the coast, the ridge of the mountains - and then we landed. As soon as I could I got my things, texted Mum to let her know I'd arrived, filled in the immigration form, made it through border control, then waited for the suitcases. And waited. Eventually after about 25 minutes, my suitcases appeared on the belt, with only 2 cases between them - since I was surrounded by other travellers, it was a bit of a struggle to quickly whip the first suitcase off without bashing it into people, then to grab the other one before it zoomed off. Once I had all my luggage, I went through - and there was my uncle Alejandro waiting for me. It was wonderful seeing him again!
A 25-minute taxi drive later, there we were outside my grandparents' house, in the district of Pueblo Libre. My granddad Abuelo was there at the door, it was lovely to see him, then I went to see my grandma Mamamama, we were so happy to see each other. Tio Alejandro helped me move my things upstairs to the room I'd be staying in, then I munched a little on soda crackers on fruit, then I said goodnight and we all went to our rooms. The first thing I did was shower - the hot water was off, but it was very hot and humid so I welcomed the cold water, then had a drink of water and went straight to bed, tired but ever so happy that I'd arrived with no problems.
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