I never thought traveling outside of the country would be so incredibly stressful. I guess I was lucky the last time I went outside of the country I a) went to Europe which is fairly sophisticated, and b) didn't really care about anything because I was 19. Now, we are faced with an impressive amount of necessary planning and too many details to think of them all. I've also discovered that Luis, while being from Peru, is not the best person to ask about the technical details. Yesterday I asked him what type of electricity they use in Peru and he's not real sure. Granted, he's been gone for over 10 years, but it still surprises me how little he knows about his home country. So I've been responsible for the majority of the planning, organizing and details; partly because that is what I do. I can't handle being unorganized and I like to have some sort of plan when we go places. It's a good thing because if not, we would arrive in Peru and be shocked to find some of our plans will not work out!
Back to the actual planning. I feel like nothing is going right with making plans for this. A lot of this is our fault for waiting until late, but I didn't think these things would be a problem. Guess what, we're going during the busy season, made even busier because we'll be there during Inti Raymi! We couldn't book the trains we wanted from Cusco to Machu Picchu because they were all sold out, so we had to change some plans. This means we won't get to take the cool Vistadome train, and we have to return to Ollantaytambo (which I think will be a good thing and I'm excited about seeing the ruins in Ollanta!)
The biggest problem is that the combination between our Chase cards and the somewhat unreliable Internet in Peru is making it difficult to book things (I should clarify- the Internet in Peru may be fine, but the process of paying for services based in Peru doesn't work very well). Our cards keep getting declined either by the business or Chase. I've read that a lot of people have problems booking things in Peru using Chase cards and Visa cards that either are or are not in the Verified by Visa program. We've been mostly unsuccessful. I've tried to book our Machu Picchu tickets several times, but keep getting declined. After a phone call to Chase, they remove the fraud alert from the card and tell me that there's no guarantee that the charge will go through (spoiler alert: it didn't.). They basically tell me, several times, that there's nothing they can do. So we're less than 2 weeks out from our trip and we don't have Machu Picchu tickets or tickets to Inti Raymi! Great! We could possibly get to Peru and not get to see the 2 main things we want to.
If you ever go to Peru for Inti Raymi, know that you need tickets to see the performances. Luis and I thought it was more like a festival atmosphere and were a little surprised to find out that we needed tickets (yay for doing research). The problem is: the tickets are not that easy to acquire. The website doesn't start selling tickets until the beginning of June and good luck paying for them in the States. I tried twice and both times never got a chance to pay online, it seems like the only way to pay is in person. In Cusco. Most people have their hotel buy the tickets and charge a commission, but our hotel is not that fancy. After multiple tries, we decided to book through a tour agency, which is a lot more expensive, but we really want to go to this ceremony! Now we are waiting to hear back from one tour group so hopefully this will work out. I'm also going to try to book Machu Picchu tickets one more time... hopefully it will work or we will have to wait until we get to Peru to buy tickets and take the chance that they won't be sold out. Argh.
What I have learned during this process is Chase is kind of awful with international stuff. I've read a lot of accounts online where people couldn't use their Chase cards to book international stuff and I've had a similar experience. After being told by a two Chase employees that they can't guarantee that my charges will go through in Peru I'm not feeling great about their service. Today, I went to the bank to talk to someone about our cards being declined in Peru. He spent the whole time trying to get me to sign up for a new credit card (no thanks) and did nothing to alleviate my feelings towards the possibility of our cards being declined in Peru. And, bonus, now I'm scared that if I use our debit cards someone is going to steal our numbers and all our money! Thanks, Chase employee! So, first order of business post Peru, find a new bank!
In addition to being worried that we won't get to do our two important events, I'm also stressing out that we'll get to Peru and not be able to access our money, that someone is going to steal all of our money, and that all these hotels that we have booked and not paid for will lose our reservations. I'm also worried about the water- I've been told not to drink the tap water, and was planning on just drinking bottled water, but then I'm worried that we may not have access to bottled water, plus everything I've read says they are trying to cut back on plastic bottles and they're not allowed in certain places. So. Yea. I'm thinking about buying a Steri-pen just in case? Also, I'm worried that we're going to get yellow fever or typhoid because even though no vaccines are required to go to Peru, the CDC recommends these and it would be just my luck to contract one of these diseases.
I'm definitely excited about going to Peru, but I'll feel a lot better if we can get MP and Inti Raymi tickets purchased. And I'll probably feel better once we get there. Welcome to the world of traveling with Sam. Let's get our vacation on!
