Peru!

Hi, everyone--

It's been an eternity since I've updated the blog, so I figured it's high time. Particularly since I'm leaving for Peru next Thursday!

I'm heading out on Thursday after work with my friends Kameko, Laura and Suzanne. It's Kameko's birthday, so we'll fly to Miami and spend Thursday and Friday nights in South Beach celebrating. Then Saturday morning, we wake up bright and early and fly to Lima. From Lima, we will travel to Cusco, Machu Picchu, and finally - the part I'm so excited about - the Amazon.

This trip has already been an adventure. We booked back in December with a company called Traveland, an American company with which Kameko had previously traveled to Brazil. She had a great trip. Based on her past positive experience, we decided to go with Traveland for Peru. We paid our money and were ready to go.

We thought.

About three weeks ago, Kameko got an email from Traveland entitled, "End of Operations." It read, "Dear Traveler - Traveland has reached the end of operations. By law, airlines are required to honor your flights. Please contact your travel insurance carrier for information." Except we didn't purchase travel insurance. So we started with Traveland. We called. The phone wasn't operable. We emailed. The emails bounced. We visited the website. It was gone.

Not good.

This happened immediately before the four of us were taking a girls' weekend trip to the mountains, so we got to powwow and figure out what *exactly* was going on that weekend. Essentially, we discovered that Traveland had, in fact, reached the "end of operations." We don't know what that really means in the business world, but what it translated into for several unlucky travelers in Colombia - who we found on a Traveland blog - was that they were stranded in Medellin. And drinking heavily.

Lest the same fate befall us - being stranded in South America, drinking pisco sours into oblivion while surrounded by alpaca and llamas, we decided that we'd have to come up with an alternate plan.

We called our various credit card companies and filed claims for reimbursement, and set about the task of figuring out what we were going to do in Peru for 8 days - where none of us had been before, without any reservations, without any of us speaking Spanish. Clearly, all four of us were determined to still make the trip, reservations or not. Kidnapping insurance be damned. We're going to Peru! This makes me think of the Guinness commercials -- "Brilliant!"

I'd recently made friends with a Peruvian guy, Benito - and I mean, I'd met him that same week - and so naturally, being the shy person that I am (haha) I called him to ask what we should do. In contrast to our bald determination to get to Peru sans travel plans, Benito WAS brilliant -- his mother and sister still live in Peru, his uncle owns a hotel in Lima, and best of all, one of his close friends has a travel agency. Within a few days, Benito had contacted the travel agency and we'd begun ironing out our itinerary. All the details aren't completely worked out yet ... umm, we haven't exactly booked, but we're working on it ... but we're going to Peru!

Wow, that doesn't sound as smart as it did in my head. But we're going to book soon - like today - as soon as the Peruvian travel agency confirms the reservations.

Actually, when I say it, it kind of sounds like we're still at the "Brilliant!" phase and just taking off for Peru with no plans. Guess we kind of still are. Hmm. And I've just realized that I will *not* be able to post this until itinerary IS booked, lest my parents have a stroke and kill me before I have a chance to hop the country. Damn. And I was all excited about posting, too.

Anyway - utterly undaunted - we're booking soon and regardless, flying off into the distance on Thursday! Miami promises to be a story in itself. We originally hoped to spend a few days with friends in the area, but that fell through. So we've booked a tiny hotel room in South Beach, ata place called the Clevelander. I picture something akin to college spring break. We have one room and two double beds for four girls. We're calling it Spring Break '07 ... in honor of our takin' it back to college days, I'm going to get an airbrushed tee shirt with fringe and beads. Kameko has already informed us that if anyone in Miami asks, she's turning 19 and we're all on Spring Break. Woo freakin' hoo, baby! Sippy cups on the beach. Score, bitches.

And Peru happens Saturday morning. While no vaccinations are required by the CDC, the portions of the Amazon we will visit are high-risk zones for yellow fever, typhoid and malaria. I got my vaccinations this morning (ouch) and they'll be effective within ten days. We reach the Amazon 12 days from now, so that's perfect timing.

Well - I'll keep updating, particularly once we have our itinerary booked with the new travel agency. Please, please, please let that come through ...

Tif

OK- so the itinerary just came through! We're on our way, and we have confirmed reservations. Yay!