Well, it's happened. We've had our first major transport blunder. Successfully flew from Paris to Madrid, arriving into Madrid at 9:30pm. We then had a three hour wait before we boarded a 12 hour flight from Madrid to Lima. Or at least that was the plan…

We boarded without a hiccup, but after engine start we knew something was up. After about 20 minutes of sitting and wondering we were told that there were technical problems and we'd be taxiing back in and they'd let us know how long the delay would be. 2 hours later we were told to disembark, wait in the terminal and expect an update at 4:45am. Yay. Then at about 4:15am they finally cut their losses and cancelled the flight. And that's when the real fun started!

200+ tired and emotional people had to make their way back through customs and then stand in the cold and wait for buses. Our bags weren't being unloaded (as we found out through broken English when we asked the question), but they were taking us to a hotel. By 6:30am we were finally in a hotel room, which is actually really quite nice, with a rough expectation to get an update on what to expect at midday. No idea what that will be or what's going to happen about our connecting flights. Guess we'll find out later. At least our trek doesn't start in earnest until the 27th - surely we'll be there by then!

Wish us luck!!