Getting to Cusco
Cusco, Peru - Day 14
Katie and I woke before the sun. We packed our car, said farewell to our home for the last few days, and hit the winding road to the harbor town of Tiquina where we would have to load that car on the barge...in the dark. We calculated an extra couple hours into the trip to the airport in case something went awry. The drive to Tiquina went smooth, but when we arrived there was a car that had attempted to board one of the barges, but failed. The car was high centered on the ramp to the barge with the front wheels off the ramp. All the barge drivers were attempting to assist this car and the only thing we could do was wait. We burned up 15-20 minutes of our extra hour queued for the barge. Fortunately when it was my turn, I got the car on there without a problem. The ride to the outskirts of La Paz also went without a hitch. Then we entered La Paz.
Driving in La Paz is batshit crazy. Essentially, you have to honk and strong arm your way through or else you are not going to get anywhere. No one follows any laws, signs, lights, or anything and cars are inches apart at times. Driving down the "highway" you will find cars stopped in the middle of the street, people running across the road, packs of dogs wandering around, and people driving the wrong way. Most cars are all banged up and our rental was no exception. Fortunately for us, I had my 'no non-sense driving gloves' on and Katie had her 'calm and concise navigator atlas' at the ready. We made it to the airport parking lot with still about an hour and ten minutes to spare. We got our bags checked into the flight with no problem and headed back over to Hertz to return the car. Aaaaaaaaand no one was there. Again. It was inside their office hours, but for whichever reason there was no one there. I called the 24 hours line again and Rudy (who works this office) said 5 minutes and that we should not drop the keys in the key return. We do the dance again where we wait 15 minutes, call, "5 minutes" repeat a couple of times. When we were down to about 30 minutes before our flight was to start boarding, Diego (the guy who came in to rent us the car when Rudy couldn't make it originally), got involved and called the lady who was at the Eurocar desk. She went through all the checkout stuff, but said something else had to happen and that we couldn't leave until Rudy got there. We waited until there was literally no time left and Rudy still hadn't shown up. We called Diego and he said, AND I QUOTE, "So sorry Mr. Daniel, but Rudy fell asleep. We should have everything we need for the car rental. Go ahead and just drop the key in the key return." That is what we did and then ran as fast as we could to the gate and boarded the plane to Cusco.
We got an Uber to Plaza Mayor de Cusco and checked into our hotel where we got a suite with a balcony overlooking the plaza. With a sigh of relief (that La Paz was all behind us), we explored the square a bit before calling it a night.
