Pull the Lever!!! WRONG LEVER!!!

Hello there, dear family and friends! I hope that at least a few of you are "The Emperor's New Groove" enthusiasts like myself, and understand the significance of my title choice for this first blog entry. For those of you who are clueless, you have my deepest sympathy. :-)

So thanks for stopping by to read about my Peruvian adventures! I'm hoping this will be the first of many entries that I share with y'all during my three months in Cusco. Just as a short introduction, I'm here in Peru for work purposes. (I mean, not everyone can have a cushy office job...) :-) I currently serve as University Relations Advisor for ProWorld Service Corps. ProWorld is a provider of volunteer-based study abroad, internship experiences, and short-term volunteer trips. (What's that? You said you wanted a shameless plug? Certainly--here you are: www.proworldvolunteers.org. Happy to help!) Most of my work year is spent traveling domestically, forging relationships between ProWorld and university faculty, administration, and students. Luckily, however, I also get to enjoy some of ProWorld's international awesomeness by getting to help out on site during the summer months, which tend to be very busy at some of our most popular sites. A few months ago, it was officially decided that I would spend May, June, and July in Cusco, Peru, and today, I'm finally here! Well, almost.

The truth is, I'm not in Cusco quite yet. But I'm so close I can SMELL it! And I can also feel the altitude sickness creeping in, which, though physiologically impossible, is mentally very much a reality for a hypochondriac such as myself. Technically, I should have arrived in Cusco this morning, but instead, I'm here in the Costa del Sol Hotel across from Lima International Airport. Let's back up to the start of this splendid adventure!

On Wednesday morning, bright and early, I kissed my beloved Gramster goodbye and hopped into the car with Paul and Eileen Whitman, the world's most wonderful parents. We drove to Newark Liberty International Airport, and after redistributing my 71 pound suitcase (an uber stressful and not to be repeated event!), I departed at 9:29 AM for leg one of my trip. I arrived in Miami, spent a few hours in the airport there, and then headed for Panama City around 3:30 in the afternoon. I arrived in Panama several hours before my scheduled departure for Lima, and as a result arrived at my departure gate quite prematurely. Perhaps it was my extreme promptness, or maybe my generally friendly approachability, but as I sat innocently in Panama, a skinny guy approached me and made a proposition. Skinny guy, it turns out, works for Copa Airlines, my flight carrier for both the previous and the next leg of my journey. He also turns out to be quite the master of salesmanship, as he persistently asks if I might consider staying in Panama for the night "in a five-star hotel with a $300 Copa Airlines bonus voucher and free dinner and breakfast and transportation." Tough to turn down, especially when I reflect on my dear mother, who has longed to be "bumped" for a significant portion of her life (to no avail). "What would Eileen Whitman do?" I think to myself, and the answer is clear as day.

And so began a bit a bumpage. Skinny guy quickly managed to attract two other volunteers, one who seemed to me to be an ex-pat sort of feller, and the other a native Peruvian whom our taxi driver described accurately as "delgadito" (very skinny). So as not to confuse this skinny guy with the original skinny guy, we shall call my fellow bumpee "delgadito." So after waiting for our original flight to board and depart, Skinny Copa Airlines guy helps my two new friends and me to arrange our travels to the Hotel Panama, in the heart of Panama City. (I should mention that prior to this occurrence, Skinny Copa Guy and I had a serious heart to heart conversation about his aspirations to become a famous pop star, like his music idol Christina Aguilera. Que interesante...) To my dismay, I learned after agreeing to the bumpage plan that my luggage was already en route to Lima, which left me with only a pair of Harvard sweatpants, several pairs of jeans that I had thrown into a tote bag to reduce my 71-pound suitcase, and two DVDs ("Little Women" or "The Princess Diaries," anyone?). En route to Lima were such necessities as my laptop, my hairbrush, my toothbrush, my altitude sickness prevention pills, and my supply of American snack food (aka my pretzels). Luckily, I can make do as a minimalist, and in spite of my lack of resources, the hotel was BEAUTIFUL and SWANKTASTIC, and I had a comfortable night's sleep to break up my journey. I also got a nice free dinner out of the deal, which turned out to be pretty high class. Fearing the dangers of foreign drinking water and traveler's diarrhea, I ended up eating only a bowl of Panamanian vegetable soup, but it was hands down the best vegetable soup I've had in my 25 years of life on earth, and nearly 24 hours later, I have yet to suffer as a result of having eaten it. Booyah.

As agreed the night before, I returned to the airport with delgadito early this morning, and we flew to Lima, which took about four hours. Copa Airlines is pretty super comfortable on a comparative scale, and there was an in-flight showing of the movie "True Grit" (in English!), so I had no complaints. Delgadito and I had bonded pretty seriously by the time we arrived in Lima. The night before, when checking into the Hotel Panama, he suggested that I join him at the casino next to the hotel, and THEN suggested that we share a hotel room! Being my pure and cautious self, I opted out, but in the morning, we had some enjoyable conversation, and we later exchanged e-mail addresses. I don't really know why, but I figured it couldn't hurt since I'd be about 10,000 feet above him in a few hours.

As our Lima aircraft was pulling into the gate, an announcement came over the plane speakers for "Whitman Sarah" to come to the front of the plane. My first thought was that I was being arrested for smuggling contraband into Peru (in the form of either my little bag of Good 'N' Plenties, which easily resemble caplets of mystery drug, or my 238 prescriptions for various travelers' ailments--thank you kindly, Dr. Renzi!). In fact, it was another lovely Copa representative, this one a woman, who wanted to help me to arrange my rescheduled flight to Cusco. I was expecting to fly into the city that very afternoon, but it turned out that that wasn't in the cards. Instead, I was led across the street to the Costa del Sol Hotel, where I would be staying until the following morning, when I would officially head to my final destination.

Which brings me to now. Here I am in my nice, comfortable room, with Internet, a newly-showered body made lovely-smelling by way of the deodorant that I so very much missed the night before, a change of clothes, and a new sense of positivity. Sadly, I wasn't able to get out and explore Lima because I had to wait in the hotel until I officially received my boarding pass for tomorrow. But I have had some much-needed time to relax, watch some Rachael Ray with Spanish subtitles, and call my wonderful family and tell them I'm alive. Calling home was easy with the help of Skype, but it reminded me of how hard it's going to be to be away from my parents for these three months. I may sound like a five-year-old for missing Mom and Dad, but hearing their voices over the computer made my throat swell up and the tears come to my eyes. I have such love for them, and there's nothing quite like the feeling of knowing that your parents want the very best for you. For that reason alone, I want to take full advantage of my time in Peru to grow and to become a more intelligent, loving, and understanding human being. Gotta make the padres proud!

Clearly, the adventures have begun even before my arrival in my destino final! Until my next entry (which I pretty seriously intend on writing this very same night), hasta luego!