Argentina suffered too much to become world champions in Qatar but enjoyed it in the end and that relief was replicated in some Argentine tourists who were stranded in Cusco from the crisis in Peru and found out the result from the pilot’s suspenseful message.

On Wednesday of last week, the former president of Peru, Peter Castillo, attempted to carry out a self-coup for which he was dismissed and subsequently detained in preventive detention, where he will remain for 18 months. His followers, especially within the country, began to demonstrate in different cities, vandalized airports and the police ferociously repressed with a balance of at least 20 dead.

One of the airports that protesters tried to attack was Cusco, one of the most important for tourism in Peru. It is the air terminal where tourists arrive to see the Inca citadel Machu Picchu and it is here that Marcela Luiz had planned to celebrate her 50th birthday with her partner and her children.

“We had planned the trip to Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu in early October – Marcela comments to clarion-. Castillo’s departure had passed two days before the trip. We learned about it on the news but everything seemed calm in Cusco, even on Sunday and Monday we went on excursions such as going to the Humantay lagoon”.

Well in advance they had bought tickets to get on the train that goes from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the town that is located before reaching the Inca citadel, and also tickets for both Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu. However, Violent protests reached Cusco on Tuesday.

“Protests started in the city, we found out that there had also been protests in Ayacucho and that there had been eight deaths and a lot of violence. In Cusco we saw marches, but fortunately no violence in the vicinity. We turned on the news and saw that they had tried to take over the airport, which had blocked the train and the access to the city of Cusco with stones,” says Marcela, who was visiting the city for the third time.

And the situation got more complicated: “There they tell us that we couldn’t go to Machu Picchu because the trains had been cancelled, as well as the buses. you couldn’t leave the hotel.”

Beyond the cascade of cancellations of excursions, they asked the Farnesina for help, but the answer was that at the moment they could not give them a solution. “They told us to stay in the hotel and take care of ourselves,” Marcela notes.

One of the objectives of Pedro Castillo’s defenders was the airfields. Since the second day of protests, protesters have taken control of Andahuaylas airport, which has no commercial flights.

But the pattern was repeated in Arequipa, the second most important in the country, in Cusco, the most touristic, in Ayacucho, where eight deaths were recorded due to police repression. They also took the one from Juliaca, near Puno.

“We tried to leave earlier, but there were no operations at the airport,” Marcela says. Only on Friday afternoon, the first to reopen with a heavy military guard was the Cusco airport. With 13 flights of two airlines -Latam and JetSmart- operations resumed and the 6,000 tourists who were stranded began to leave, according to data provided by the local governor.

The most complicated, among which there are also the Argentines, are those who were in Aguas Calientes and had no way of getting off in Cusco. There have been problems with drinking water and requests for the Peruvian government to speed up aid.

The relief on the plane

The airport reopened on Friday and regular flights started bringing in tourists. In a terminal in the area battered by police and military, Marcela and her family managed to board for Buenos Aires on Sunday and learned of the result mid-flight in a video that went viral.

The plane that made a stopover in Lima was full of Argentine tourists stranded in Cusco for a few days. “Due to a plane malfunction, the flight was delayed and we were able to see the first half, for which we are infinitely grateful,” Marcela says with a laugh.

“The plane took off at the end of the first half, we were leading 2-0. After 45 minutes we wanted to ask the captain and he said there was no news. After another hour we couldn’t take it anymore and we asked how could it be that the result was not there. and they replied that they were over the ocean and had no communication,” said the 50-year-old woman clarion.

Finally came the commander’s message, full of suspense. The passengers only had the information that Argentina had closed 2-0 and they listen: “They inform us that the game is over and the final result was 3 France, 3 Argentina, the penalty shootout has just ended.”

And after an eternal pause for all the tourists who had suffered from being stuck, the commander releases: “Argentina world champion“. The video had more than 450,000 likes on TikTok and although Marcela’s family did not make it to Machu Picchu, they let off steam at the top of the plane