The Beginning

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Graham and I are currently waiting to get our taxi to the airport to catch the flight to Cusco and begin our Spanish course, so what better time to fill you in on the first few days of our adventure.
To say that everything has gone smoothly would be a lie.
Firstly, our connection from Madrid to Lima was cancelled and hence we´d need to catch a flight at 08.40 on Tuesday morning, following a brief stay in a Madrid hotel. This wasn´t particularly bad news as we expected a swanky hotel to be offered by the airline Comet and there was also a rumour that we´d be bumped up to first class.

The flight to Madrid worked perfectly and we were right about the hotel. Massive.
After a cracking buffet and a few cervezas at the hotel bar we went to our separate twin rooms (mine being a ten minute walk from the entrance) and tried to get the most out of the three hours we´d left ourselves for sleep.

At 6.00am Madrid time we bordered the coach again and left for the airport. After checking in we sat down and I noticed Graham rummaging through his rucksack with a slightly concerned look on his face. When I asked him what was wrong his words chilled me to the core: Í think I´ve left my wallet at the hotel.´ After a few checks it was clear that this was the case. There were only 90 minutes till take-off so the outlook was bleak.
We spoke to a man at the airline desk who told us to get a coach back to the hotel and look for the wallet ourselves. We rushed out the front of the airport but could see no buses or coaches, only a few taxis were parked up. We jumped in the first one and showed the driver the hotel´s information card, thinking any taxi driver worth his salt would be able to follow a simple map. Obviously we were wrong; he ended up taking us to a completely different hotel and our panic began to mount.
Now it was shit or bust. We didn´t want to miss the plane so told the driver to whisk us back to the airport.
When we arrived back there a woman from Comet told us she could phone the hotel and get them to bring the wallet with the next shuttle bus but we´d have to wait out front for it. With only 15 minutes until the plane was due to take off we were both panicking, ready to bolt through the airport but were reassured by staff that we still had time.
We finally decided that the bus wasn´t coming and legged it through security to the departure gates only to find a massive queue waiting to pass through our gate. Graham ran back to the entrance to keep waiting for the bus, whilst I tried to calm my hyperventilations in the departure lounge. With the last couple of peope passing through the gate I was contemplating six months of travel on my own or paying to rearrange our Lima flight, only for him to come sprinting through security. Unfortunately the bus hadn´t arrived but at least we were in time for the plane.
With no wallet we boarded the plane, only to find that our seats had been double booked. After twenty minutes of standing at the front complaining about not being allowed in first class we accepted defeat and took our seats with the cattle at the back as the plane taxied along the runway.

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