Day 1

So I am here. It took almost 30 hours of travel, but I made it. I havn't slept in that amount of time either, which of course is just fueling the panicked emotions I am feeling right now. I read about the 4 stages of culture shock- honeymoon, crisis, resolution, acceptance - and I skipped right over honeymoon and straight into crisis. There were crises in transit, fueled by the fact that I had 3 flights, 2 of them got delayed for over an hour, and between each of them I had to exit and go back through security. Lesson #1: Cheap flights are cheap for a reason. But my guardian angels were definitely around, because as I began my 6 hour overnight stay in Lima last night, a 70 year old lady who spoke both perfect English and perfect Spanish and had traveled hundreds of times before sat down next to me and started talking about everything under the sun. She talked about random stuff that took my mind off things and she gave me great advice on how not to get robbed (which freaked me out a bit). The car ride here from Peru was terrifying. Everything is desert, and people live in little 4ft square shacks made of cinder blocks and tarps. So not my idea of what this would be like.