LONG Trip !!!

July 2, 2007 ~ Hi all! Got in very late last night. Our trip was relatively uneventful, but dreadfully long. We left at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to LAX. Pulled into LAX into a terminal that couldn't be further from the terminal from which we needed to catch our Lan Peru flight to Lima, Peru (9-hour flight). Mom and I got lucky on this flight in that we had an empty seat between us (Dad was sitting several rows back). The Lan Peru plane was really cool. Each seat had an entertainment system loaded with movies, music, TV shows, games, documentaries, news, flight status on map, etc. Great selection of everything and free. It really helped pass the time! Landed in Peru around midnight, with a two hour layover for a next flight (same plane) to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Arrived in Brazil around 8 a.m. Sunday. Wow, what a huge city! It has over 11 million people and is apparently the most populous in the southern hemisphere. By the time we reached the airport in Sao Paulo, all three of us had one track minds... Hot Shower! We had 9 hours til our next flight to Curitiba (just a 55 minute flight), so we took a Marriott shuttle to the nearby Marriott where I understood they had day rates. We showed up, but they had no rooms available. Bummer! I was getting more desperate by the minute (for a shower) and they offered to call another hotel for us. This is where our trip comes to an upswing. the guy at the counter offers to have their shuttle driver take us to another nearby hotel that had space available - the Ceasar Park Hotel. That was the most expensive shower I've ever had, but frankly price was no object at that point (did I mention I was desperate for a shower?). Room was gorgeous. We all took short naps, had lunch, checked out, then took our freshly showered selves back to the airport to catch our last flight, or so we thought. Got to airport to find that our flight was delayed a couple hours (and we were already a couple hours early). Damn... could have had another shower! :)