May 30, 2012
So I went. I went from Long Beach to
Starkville to Asheville to Black Mountain to Starkville to Long Beach to New
Orleans to Atlanta to Lima to my destination, Arequipa, Peru.
Though it seemed like everything that could have been going
wrong was indeed, going wrong, things are working out. A stressful Tuesday
morning turned out to be nothing more than frivolous worrying and compounding
the probability of a stray grey hair. The flight to New Orleans to Atlanta was
nothing. Atlanta to Lima wasn’t too bad either? I think it last around 7 hours.
I think. Yo creo. Customs was slow. Not difficult, just slow. My flight didn’t
leave from Lima to Arequipa until 5:30 the next morning (forgot to mention that
I landed in Lima at 11:30 p.m.), so I had some meandering time in the Lima
airport, which was actually quite nice – the airport, not the rambling. I found
a Starbucks to loiter in for several hours. I had tea. Earl Grey. So I guess
that’s not loitering. Loitering still sounds cooler. We boarded the plane close
to 5:00 a.m., where I arrived in Arequipa just shy of 7:00 a.m. With airplanes
at small airports, the passengers are often escorted off of the plane right on
the runway. So, yeah! That’s what we did. It was quite chilly! Que frio, no?
While walking towards to airport, the view of the
surrounding mountains and volcanoes gave me a small shudder of excitement due
to a flood of granola-esque idears that occupied my mind.
My boss, Sandro,
picked me up a few minutes after my arrival. We took a small taxi to my new
home for the summer – a quaint little two-story apartment in downtown Arequipa
complete with a staircase to the roof that is begging to be made into a
secondary living room/bedroom/whatever room. My roommate Phil appears to be a
pretty cool cat. And when I say cat, I mean human. He is 10x the Gitano I can
ever hope to be. We talked of teaching, traveling, surfing, potential hikes,
places, ideas and whatever else two men who were once strangers talk of.
Plan for the day is to run down to the market and get a few
things for the apartment. Oh! I will probably get a Peruvian phone. Yeah, I
suppose that seems like a good idea. Also, Sandro will pick Phil and me up to
get lunch around two, and then go to the BNC – that’s my place of work. First
day and I already have a teachers meeting! Love being productive with 1.5 hours
of sleep. LOVE IT.
Until next time! (Which shouldn't be but a few days)
Jonathon
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