Cheap tickets to Lima Peru are not easy to find. We flew from Bogota Colombia on VivaColombia (Fast Colombia SAS!). The experience started quite badly. For the first time I’d bought a ticket with all the add-ons including a “rapido” check-in. It turned out to be anything but “rapido”.
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In fact it was exceedingly slow until they eventually added another check-in counter. To make matters worse their ground staff have a bad attitude.
Country to country flights in South America are expensive and the emerging ‘low cost” airlines here could learn a few lessons from Asian real low cost airlines like JetStar, AirAsia and Cebu Pacific.
For our supper snack at Bogota airport we bought an empanada. It was overpriced (like all airport food and drinks) and the worst tasting empanada I’d eaten in Central or South America … and I’ve eaten a lot!
Lima Peru
As we landed late and were leaving early the next morning we stayed in a hostel near the airport. We didn’t stop to get a Peru data SIM and without access to Uber took the “official airport taxi” ... again a rip-off.
We’d been led to believe that Lima was unsafe. It is probably true of parts. We walked back from the restaurant. The people were friendly and enjoying their Friday evening. Lots of people and stalls. With streets unbelievably free of litter.
This was again noticeable when we drove to the airport … very different from most 3rd World countries.
Flight to Cusco
We set off the following morning at 3:30am. The hostel owner arranged a taxi (an Uber) which was half the price of the night before!
Check- in went well except the part of having to traipse through the airport behind some airline employee to pay a tax that had been included in the ticket price. This was apparently required as we had flown from Bogota and left the airport in Lima?
Again we encountered the bad attitude of the Viva Colombia staff … not good!
The flight was delayed about 2 hours with only scattered update announcements – and then some only in Spanish.
After getting on the plane we sat on runway – with no comments from the cockpit. As I looked out of the window I counted 13 odd bodies lounging and sitting around doing nothing - made me feel like I was back in South Africa!
Although we were 2 hours late when we started it looked like we were going to reverse to Cusco. Just then the rattley, creaky plane accelerated with a burst and we were off!
As compensation for the delay when we landed we were handed a box with a ham and cheese bun.
Now in Cusco to acclimatize and prepare for our Inca Trail Hike.