Regular contributor Mac ruminates on the world of travel & some of his adventures along the way

This time round he’s recalling Peru, via a few anecdotes:-

• One time employees of the US State Department chartered a plane for a sightseeing holiday in Peru. As they needed more to fill plane they allowed some non employees to go at a reasonable price. Two of us from AFRH went. When we got to Cuzco my friend from the home got sick in the middle of the night from the altitude and all he could say was “Mac Oxygen”. I ran to the desk and hollared oxygen and they summed up situation immediately and brought oxygen giving him a gulp at a time. When he came to I said Hampton (his name) if you had died I didn’t know how I was going to get you down from this Mountain and back to the home. So I told him I was going to tell that his dying words were that he wanted to be buried up here with the Indians.
• At the airport leaving Peru a couple that worked for Blue Cross who we had became friends with were having some Inca Cola when she decided she wanted to look at the jewellery in display. She was a tall stunning blonde and wore a fancy shawl over her shoulders. They brought a card with jewellery on it and one piece got caught. It was then explained to me that the vendor called over the police and they arrested our friends for stealing jewellery. I went up to the pilot and explained what happened – they said they already knew as the Embassy had phoned them. They took her to one jail where there were some prostitutes that had been picked up and took him to a different jail. The lady allegedly “jewel thief” later said that the prostitutes were very nice and sympathized with her. The couple when they did get out of jail had to pay their own way back to the States etc. They got even with Peru though as they wrote up in detail about the incident and it was published in the Seven Day Adventist paper to warn tourists to skip looking at the jewellery at the airport !
• Another on the trip told me that one time before she had been in Peru and a nice dressed gentleman struck up a conversation with her as she was waiting for a taxi. He offered to help her and she turned away and the diplomatic gentleman and her luggage were gone…Ha.