More about the Tans flights (now with added significance):
The Tans plane was a 737-200 in a one class configuration, which was clearly an older plane but not really dirty or rundown - certainly no worse than the typical AA plane. Our flights didn't make me fear for my life at all - Tans didn't seem operationally or institutionally sketchy at all, and it's unfortunate that the plane crashed today - I hope it was just severe weather. I have a hard time imagining crashes like that, with a large number of survivors - it just doesn't fit with my image of a dart from the sky spiralling out of control and exploding in a huge fireball. But back on topic: There was a mix of gringos like us and authentic Peruvians flying to Cusco; the plane wasn't full. The flight lasted about an hour, I think. I'm not sure because I fell asleep as soon as we sat down and didn't wake up until we landed. They gave us a paper bag with breakfast consisting of a package of two small muffins and a juice box - and the bag had a maze on it providing hours of fun.

We got off the plane in Cusco and had to wait for what seemed like a long time for the checked bags to come out - I think the plane had already taken on passengers from Cusco and taken off for its next destination before we got our bags. The baggage claim area had a loud group of musicians in Peruvian garb playing pan pipes, etc, and a bunch of booths for tourist type agencies and hotels. As soon as we stepped outside the offers for taxis or other types of rides to the city came fast and furious. We walked through a few waves of guys and ended up getting a taxi for the four of us for 8 soles - taxis don't have meters, you negotiate a rate before the trip starts.

I'm really not going to do justice to what we saw while we were there, but here's what I have the time to jot down now anyway:
In Cusco we stayed at Hospadaje Los Christales, which we found by walking around - we had no reservations, and the first couple places we looked were full. It was not deluxe, but very comfortable, with friendly staff, breakfast in the morning, and a location a relatively short walk up the hill from the main plaza. We stayed there two nights before and two nights after our trip to Machu Picchu, first in a four person room with our own bathroom and then in two two-person rooms with shared hallway baths, both times for 26 soles a night a person. They also provided laundry service for 3 soles a kilo - we left the clothes we wanted washed in the morning and they were back at the end of the day folded and plastic bagged, and clean even though they were pretty nasty after our 5 day trek.

The first day in Cusco my sleep debt (from the weeks before our trip and the day and night traveling) combined with the altitude (10000 feet or so) to make me dead tired with a bad headache, so I ended up sleeping most of the day and night. I was okay after that, fortunately, even as we went up to 15000 feet at one point. The second day we walked around Cusco and went to see Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo and walked around the town of Urubamba, which was more or less taken over by a market, with people selling every kind of food, clothing, whatever.

The next day we left early in the morning for a trek to Machu Picchu with United Mice. We chose not to take the Inca Trail, which gets about 500 people a day, and instead went near Salkantay. The scenery was spectacular, but I'll let my pictures talk about that (posted soon, I promise - I have a lot to edit and go through). The guides and service on the trek were great; we had three guides who all spoke decent English and enjoyed engaging the group and sharing about the things we were seeing, even though it was clear they had done the same trip dozens (hundreds?) of times. There were about 20 people in the group, from all over the world, including Australia, the US, the UK, and Russia. At first I thought it would have been nicer to have a smaller group, but I had a great time getting to know everyone and was glad the group had everyone. It was a little hard at first to get used to having the guides and porters do everything for us (cook, do the dishes, carry our tents and packs on the mules, set up and take down the tents, boil water for drinking, and on and on), but we got used to it eventually. I think there were probably cheaper options for companies to go with, but we were quite happy with our choice because they were so professional and experienced.

The fourth night of the trip we camped at the campground in Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu Peublo) at the base of Machu Picchu. The next morning we got up to the ruins at sunrise (some on the first bus of the day and some with a vigorous hike up the mountain) to beat the massive crowds that would come later and see the sunrise. After seeing everything there (which I'm sure you can read about many places) we walked back down to Aguas Calientes and got the train back to Cusco.

We had another full day in Cusco, which we used to sleep in, see some museums and more ruins, and shop for alpaca clothing.

After we were done in Cusco we flew on to Puerto Maldonaldo, on a flight that was the continuation of the Cusco flight we were on before. They really didn't mess around with the turn - shortly after the plane landed, we boarded, and right after everyone was on they shut the door and pushed back right away. The flight to PEM was about half an hour long, and had no food service. We reclaimed our bags after a once again seemingly unnecessarily long wait, then took the transportation provided by the lodge we were staying at. I got the impression that the city of Puerto Maldonaldo itself is something of a dusty armpit of a town and not worth spending much/any time in, but there are 12 or 14 lodges in the jungle around there reachable by boat. We stayed at the Eco Amazonia Lodge. We took a lot of naps, saw birds and monkeys, and generally relaxed. As far as I know, none of us contracted malaria or yellow fever (although the mosquitoes weren't as bad as we had been led to believe anyway). August is in the middle of the dry season, so we received no rain, and in fact one of the excursions was altered to exclude a river that was too dry because they hadn't gotten rain for quite a while. It wasn't unreasonably hot though, and the first night we were even pretty cold. After three nights we took the lodge boat back to the airport for our flights back to Lima.

PEM is fairly small; our plane was the only one there at the time. The terminal had a few souvenir shops and fast food/convenience store type places, with one of each past "security," along with bathrooms. The x-ray machine was non-functional for whatever reason, so all bags got a cursory hand inspection. The flight stopped in Cusco and had no service for the half hour PEM-CUZ; the view of the ground, especially of the mountains around Cusco, was great. After a quick turn we headed back to LIM, again getting the muffins and juice. After we landed at LIM we went down the steps to a waiting bus that drove us about 50 yards to the terminal. Seriously, we could have almost thrown our carryons that far, but we had to take the bus.