I had only 5 days to fall in love with the people of Colombia and Venezuela – I needed only one. All too soon, I was packing my backpack for the next leg in my journey (with a little extra packing space after delivering spice containers to the volunteer house; I felt a bit like Han Solo, sans blaster).

After a whirlwind final tour of Pamplona sights – Cristo Rey, obligatory tourist photo ops, and a final volunteer house visit – Bethani and I boarded the bus to Cúcuta, wedging ourselves into seats with carry-on luggage loaded onto our laps. Over the next 3 hours, numbness crept from my toes to my calves, and I was given a study in the location of all of my sweat glands (my kneecaps sweat, apparently). The heat climbed steadily as we descended from farms of peaches and curubas to cacti and rocks, the 93⁰F breeze making even my eyeballs hot.

I followed Bethani to her favorite haunts in the Cúcuta mall, then barely boarded my flight to Bogota due to a paperwork blunder on my part, finally enjoying some 8 pm pizza in a secret corner of the Bogota airport before finding our hotel. I bid Bethani farewell as we settled in to sleep, setting a 2:30a alarm for yet another early morning flight.

Bogota to Lima was an uneventful passage, but Lima had me hopping. We arrived 20 minutes late, cutting into my 2 hour layover that required retrieving my two checked bags of donations, passing through customs, rechecking the bags, and going back through security. I raced down to baggage claim, watching the belt eagerly.

I’d heeded multiple warnings of altitude sickness at Cusco’s 11,000 feet elevation, so I had begun a prescribed regimen of medication intended to trick my body into thinking it was oxygen deprived, kick-starting deeper and more rapid breathing to pump up my blood’s oxygen-carrying ability. At Lima’s sea level altitude, this manifested in open-mouth panting, full body sweating, and shaking my hands in an effort to get my fingertips to stop tingling. This appearance probably served my benefit as I careened toward customs with my two roller bags, carry-on bag on my back and purse slung across my chest. The customs officer simply waved me through!

The next hurdle was rechecking my bags. To simply drop the CUZ-tagged luggage on a belt would have been too simple; I had to navigate the bustling departures terminal with my wide load, inadvertently clipping the ankles of anyone who dared challenge my wide turns. On my fourth attempt, I found the correct queue, wrinkling my nose at the line of twenty persons. After ten minutes and five persons assisted, my rusty Spanish just discerned a call for my flight-in-one-hour over the din. “Yo!” I yelled, waving my numb hand as high overhead as my burdens would allow. The agent waved me forward to the front of the queue, and five minutes later I was bounding (panting) up the stairs, backpack and purse flopping.

I strode toward my gate, pushing deeper into a thickening mass of travelers. I elbowed my way to the end of what looked like some semblance of a line extending 30 yards from my gate, so I turned to a neighbor to inquire if this was the flight to Cusco. His eyes grew wide with panic, and he began to stammer.
“I, I’m so sorry, I don’t speak Spanish… Inglés?”
I chuckled inwardly as I switched from broken Spanish to easy English, confirming my place in line.

The smaller Cusco airport was a welcome sight, as were my two suitcases, then finally a sign with my name written in marker, held high by our host Maria Elena. We snapped a photo together to share my travel success with the gathering group of medical providers, and I had my first dose of “More fun!” But my travel excitement of the day wasn’t over…

After stashing my donation suitcases at Maria Elena’s, she led me five doors down the alley to my homestay where I met our hosts Mali and Jenny – cousins who grew up like sisters. They welcomed me warmly, showing me to my own room upstairs. An hour or so later, the group assembled at Maria Elena’s for introductions and orientation before taking a stroll to the mall for currency exchange and shopping.

Leading eleven Americans through the streets of Cusco was a task managed effectively by Maria Elena, local director for A Broader View Volunteers. However, Jess has a knack for introducing excitement in unforeseen, unique, and unnecessary ways. At our very first street crossing, I was near the front of the group, sticking close to our leader. The press of traffic split our wandering flock into two lopsided groups; in anticipation of the rest of the group crossing to this island median in a rush, I stepped back to make more room on the sidewalk… and fell into a hole.

Medical providers from across the United States turned from running from traffic toward rushing to my aid. I flushed, scrambling to extricate my right leg from the jagged opening in the sidewalk that had swallowed me up to the hip. I assured everyone that I was fine, flexing my right knee and elbow to reassure myself as well. We carried on toward the mall, and I was henceforth alerted by multiple party members to the location of every pothole and uneven surface. Already hammering home solid first impressions in my Peru debut!