¡Que dia! It’s already feeling weird to write an English.

I arrived in Lima around midnight Thursday. The airport has an interesting layout you arrive on one side and go through customs, then after wading through a barrage of people waiting for relatives and entrepreneurs offering to take you places or find you a hotel you cross into another section solo paraviajeros (only for travelers) where airlines have all their desks. Upstairs there are lots of shops, a big alcove where travelers often sleep, and entrances to all the gates.

When I came in, I wondered around a bit trying to look like I was moving purposefully and asked around about where I could find Taca, the airline that would take me to Cusco early in the morning. After a little misdirection and exploration of the airport the mystery was solved! Taca closes for a few hours at night but reopens at 1:30 am. So after loitering at the second floor Starbucks for a bit , I checked in with Taca checked my bags, and headed bacl upstairs the rest of the slumbering travelrrs. After about two hours, I got up and headed for the security checkpoint and the gate. The wait was pretty uneventful , except that a couple there asked me if I was from Buenos Aires. They thought I was from Argentina! Which was great considering how conspicuous I feel most of the time here as a tall whit enorteamericana with accented Spanish. Then Cusco!! I went to sleep almost immediately, but when I woke up, I saw the Andes. Talk about a way to rise. I have never seen mountains like these. Many of them rose above the cloud layer and wer capped with snow, this made them look more like volcanic archipelago in an ocean of clouds than mountains.
When I exited the airport I was met with a man with a sign that said my name, my host dad! Raul. He has been wonderful. I felt immediately safe around him, a feeling that has persisted. We went home and met his wife, Dina, and a girl who works for them more on my family later … a lot to say.