So far so good for this white girl in Peru. I had a bit of good luck to start my trip. I sat next to a great Peruvian woman from San Antonio, Sabrina, and her son on the plane ride into Lima. After our flight landed at 10:30pm, I ended up going with Sabrina and Jason and their cousins to another one of Sabrina´s cousins´60th birthday party. It was awesome. They sang, they danced, they sat around in a circle and told jokes, and they served awesome food. It was a good thing to see the Peruvian culture first-hand from the get-go. Very nice people; it was refreshing to see such a large group of family members gathered together, having fun, being close. I was super tired when I finally got to my hostel after 3am.

Manuel´s bday - Lima
Thanks to my new friend Nadia who took pictures

Bday party

cliffs o´death
Yes, this was taken from my bus window.

spraying his crops

Arequipa hotel entrance

View from center of town
There is something to be said for people who have the wanderlust. I can only speculate on where the itch comes from that gives a person the travel bug. Some of the factors that fuel my urge to explore: great adventure, meeting people from other cultures, seeing their struggles and seeing what makes them smile, and overcoming obstacles. It helps being a dreamer, envisioning that whatever trip you’re going on next will be the most amazing experience of your life and will change you forever. Of course, this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes there are bad experiences that make the trip a flop, a waste of money, and give you the feeling of “it’s good to be home” when it’s over. Despite knowing this, though, we still take that risk. We still choose to throw all caution to the wind, fill up a backpack, hop on a plane alone to South America, and the only plans that we make are to figure it out when we get there. Exactly why some get the hunger to go go go differs in all. But something that doesn’t differ is that once you catch the wanderlust, it never becomes un-caught. For those of us who travel in search of something within ourselves, this doesn’t mean that we never find it; it just means that we have more than one thing to find. So for all of the risk takers, dreamers, and adventurers: let your wanderlusting continue, and climb that mountain, swim with those sharks, ski that slope, and never cease your journeys of discovery.
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