Day 307 | March 29

Worked in the morning and then began the long journey back to Lima. Annoyingly, I had to present my passport in person to get my boarding pass to MEX in LAX. The only problem was my flight arrived in LAX hours before the check in counter opened so I was left sitting on the floor by the only power outlet for hours. On top of which, as soon as we left Denver my phone exploded. Once I was actually able to get through security at LAX things improved, though. Caught my flight to MEX just before midnight.

Day 306 | March 28

Worked from the parents house during the morning and then had a series of work meetings to tend to in the afternoon. In the evening I met the family for dinner at yet another one of my favorite places; Sushi Den. Then it was home and to bed. I’m still exhausted.

Day 305 | March 27

Work meetings all day today but we did finish up a little early. This allowed me to get back down to Denver and to even schedule an impromptu gathering of some of my friends at my other favorite place; Teller’s. Then I went over to try and surprise my parents who of course were not home. I had even checked to make sure they would be back from Oregon so I was a little baffled. I finally broke down and asked them where the heck they were and it turned out they were in Wyoming but would be back the next day. So surprise ruined but at least I had a place to stay.

Day 304 | March 26

Snapped awake to the realization that it was time to be making my way to the airport. Showered, packed and took off. Made it to the airport in good time and got on the plane smoothly. I was exhausted so I dozed for the quick flight to Denver. Getting off an airplane and not having to go through passport control was a weird experience. Luckily I got to wait in line forever to pick up my rental car so that made up for a lot of it. I stopped at The Chart House, one of my Denver standbys on the way up to the mountains and had dinner with a friend of mine. Then continued the drive and crashed for the night.

Day 303 | March 25

The ceremony and the reception are both at The University Club so a much easier day today. Hung out there, got ready, did some photos and then time for the ceremony. The room that they had the ceremony and the reception in was gorgeous and had a cool view out toward the lake. I even managed to walk in and out without the benefit of the rehearsal. Standard wedding festivities from there, drinks, dinner, dancing. Then things took a turn again and I ended up at a series of bars until like 3 or 4am.

Day 302 | March 24

Ok, here we go. Departed around midnight to the airport which was crazy busy despite being around 1am. Caught a flight to Mexico City and slept the entire way. We landed around 6am and I had some very time sensitive work to tackle. Mexico City is the worst airport to connect through because you have to clear passport control, customs and security for your connections. So while standing in the two hour passport control line I managed to get my work done while balancing my laptop on one hand. Then back on the plane for a shot to Chicago. Hit the ground around 3pm and I had just enough time to get to The University Club, pull myself together and make the rehearsal. But wait! Traffic.

I gotta hand it to the folks at The University Club. I whipped in there like a tornado, handed my shoes off to be polished and my suit to be pressed. They had my checked in and swept off to my room and even had the package I needed to collect ready. I retrieved my tux that the grooms parents had been good enough to gather and made sure it fit. Which it didn’t. So now I’m running up the road to get the tailoring fixed. This means I miss the rehearsal. No big deal, I can walk in line. Oh but wait, I’m the guy leading the groomsmen out and now I have no idea where we are going. I’ll manage.

Head over to Trump Tower for dinner which was extremely well done and the view was great. Then it was off to the Hubbard Inn for more drinks. As tends to happen… this spiraled and we didn’t get out of there until 1 or 2am.

Day 300 | March 22

Hey, 300 days in! Pity I wasn’t paying attention to that. This was another marathon workday. In the office bright and early and powered through all day. Stopped at a little pizza place by my place on the way home, Mozza. And that was literally all I did today.

Day 299 | March 21

Now that I’m back in Lima I have a ton of work to do before heading back State Side in a few days. I headed over to the office first thing an just started powering through work. I got a quick lunch at No Te Rajes, the taco place across the street. In the evening a group of us went to Maido, another one of the best restaurants in the world. This one has more of a sushi/Asian theme. We did the tasting menu which was excellent. However, like Central I thought it was a little overrated.

Day 298 | March 20

Heading back to Lima today from Cuzco. Went over to the airport and posted up in another terrible airport lounge. Eventually the scheduled departure time for my flight rolled around and there was no indication as to what was happening or where to go for that on any of the boards. So, I nervously wandered around the whole airport to individually check each gate. On the second lap I ran into someone from the airline (finally) who informed me that the flight had been delayed for an unknown amount of time. So I returned to the lounge for a few hours and this time the thing actually came up on the board and informed me where to go to get on my plane. Win! It’s an easy flight back to Lima, just up and down. Endured the annoyance of trying to track down an Uber in the chaos of the Lima airport and then headed home. Even though it was a short trip I was still pretty exhausted from the weekend so I went right to sleep.

Day 297 | March 19

Since I was already missing the Inca Trail hike I was going to be damned if I was going to let a bunch of tourists ruin my Machu Pichu photos on top of it. Thinking myself clever I resolved to wake up at the crack of dawn so that I could head up at 5am and be waiting at the doors when they opened. Sadly… about a hundred other people had that same idea. While getting in was chaotic it was still quite empty as I was walking around.

I had bought a ticket to hike up Wayna Pichu (apologizes for all this spelling, too lazy to look it up) in the 7am wave. So I walked around for a bit and then made my way over there. The hike was arduous as you’re basically doing stairs the whole way up but it wasn’t long, I’d say it took maybe 40 minutes to get to the top. The views were very worth it too. I continued to follow the loop off the top of the mountain and fairly quickly found myself completely alone. I hadn’t done any research so I had no idea where I was going at this point but I figured it had to take me back to something I knew. So… on I went. This was actually the best part of the hike as no one else was around. But it seemed to add quite a bit of length as I later discovered I descended well below my starting point and so I had to climb back up to get out. By the end I was exhausted and pretty wrecked from tromping through mud, the cloud forest and… possibly… falling off a ladder.

Made it back and wandered around some more before heading down around noon or 1pm. I had some time to kill before my train back so I grabbed a huge lunch at Mapacho Craft Beer & Restaurant which was surprisingly good. I ate alpaca…  Then it was to the train station and a train and a bus back to my hotel in Cuzco by 9pm where I crashed immediately.

All in all, I have to say this is one of the few things I’ve seen that’s really lived up to the hype.