Former Kamloops resident fears government will fail to get Canadians out of Peru

She and her friend, Sydney Robertson, are currently in Peru.

“There’s quite a few of us that are here in the Cusco area that are quite concerned that we’ll be those people who will be stranded here basically until commercial airlines take up flight again, which according to their news articles won’t be until end of April, beginning of May,” Vaillancourt said.

Vaillancourt and Robertson left for their trip on February 28.

“When we left in February, there were no travel advisories,” Vaillancourt said, “the virus was mostly just isolated to China and Italy at the time. There weren’t any cases in Canada at that point.”

By March 15, Vaillancourt and Robertson were in Cusco, a 19-hour drive from the capital of Lima, and the country went into lockdown. All international and interprovincial travel was shut down.

“It would be similar to Martial Law,” Vaillancourt said, “so current standards are facemasks in the streets at all times, one person in the street at a time, the police come into the hostel quite frequently to check that there aren’t groups of three or more in any particular place. All alcohol is banned, so if they suspect that there is any drinking or anything in the hostel they’ve actually closed hostels down in our community.”

The two friends immediately tried to secure a flight back to Lima, but with so many travellers scrambling to get home, they were unable to.

“I guess the biggest thing for us is, you know, putting that pressure on the Trudeau government to not forget us,” Robertson said, “to keep in conversation with the Peruvian government, because we want to come home.”

Both Robertson and Vaillancourt are advanced care paramedics in Calgary and are itching to get back home to help their community.

by Jill Sperling

Former Kamloops resident fears government will fail to get Canadians out of Peru

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