That was lucky....I guess.

As you may recall, Keiko Fujimori, daughter of incarcerated former president Alberto Fujimori was being investigated for *gasp* campaign irregularities.  However, she has now been cleared, and leads the polls by a significant margin in the presidential elections to be held in seven days .

As you may also recall, travel to and from Lima has lately been complicado, as they are fond of saying here, because of the landslides that cut off the road down to the coast.  

At the time that we needed to purchase bus or plane tickets for the departing missionaries, that road was still iffy, so we opted for the air route with its own imponderables (weather, limited seats, cancellations, blah, blah, blah).

Because the planes that are sent from Lima are small, 

baggage that can be carried is limited, so we made sure that the four missionaries leaving yesterday afternoon were in line very early, in case someone else showed up similarly overloaded with books, cool souvenirs and stuff accumulated over two years here in the hills.  

As the plane was beginning to load, an entourage arrived at the little airport escorted by police motorcycles with lights flashing and sirens blaring.  It was none other than Keiko and her folks!

LCPeru quickly unloaded everyone off the plane that was being readied, including an elderly lady in a wheelchair, except for our missionaries. By the time Miss Fujimori and her staff and some of the reporters had loaded and departed, 

it was too dark for the second plane, in which she had arrived earlier, to take off, and all the remaining passengers were stranded, angry, and ready to talk to the newspeople on hand.  Including the elderly lady in the wheelchair, and a patient trying to get to Lima for dialysis.  Ouch!  Luckily, our missionaries were not mentioned.  

We're not sure why our guys weren't kicked off, except perhaps because of the mucho $$$ paid for their overweight bags, but they were able to get to Lima for their connections, uncomplicating this complicated week of missionaries' travel a little bit.  

We hope that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, or whoever, doesn't complicate your travel plans.  Or uncomplicate them.  Or whatever.

Dave & Paula

PS  If you like reading Spanish and getting a headache, here's a link to the newspaper report:  http://www.americatv.com.pe/noticias/actualidad/keiko-fujimori-pasajeros-acusan-aerolinea-bajarlos-avion-favorecerla-n225245