Lost my pants, but not my pride

Missions: accomplished!

I am feeling much better today for several reasons. Thank you so much to friends who have sent me thoughts of encouragement or empathy for my travel woes and whining about health and weather. Your positive energy has granted me a great day!

The main downside was that I left my yoga pants in Arequipa. In my defense, it was very dark in our hostel dormitory room when I snuck out at the inhumane hour of 3:30 AM to get my taxi to the airport (although it was not THAT dark because a poor Swiss girl we were sharing the room with was constantly running to the bathroom from travellers sickness. Not fun). But luckily Ming´s flight outta Peru was later in the day so he saved my pants and I will reunite with them in Seattle. I will miss my yoga pants, though, because the others I have here are capri and it has been unusually cold weather here in Cuenca (of course).

But the day went very well. I stayed distracted at the early hour during my journey from Arequipa to Lima with good companions to keep my mind off worrying about stuff. I shared a taxi to the airport and coffee once there with an interesting, older French man who was also staying at our hostel, and we discussed interesting theories about the connections among "development," religion, and trust in society (as well as topics such as strangeness of American universities with malls attached and French tongue twisters). Then he left on his flight & I found new distraction buddies with two Bostonians. We were partly ashamed and partly relieved to have a loooong, animated discourse about our impressions of South & North American cultural differences (especially because one of them is neurotic like me, which I feel is the personality trait that clashes the most with South American ways of being, I´ll post about this sometime). During our chat session, which kept us from worrying about a slight delay in getting out of Arequipa and onto Lima, time went by quickly and we made up our late departure time with a timely arrival in Peru´s capital! And the Bostonians wished me luck on my mad dash to find and conquer my wandering ATM card in the 3 hour layover I had before my flight to Ecuador.

I could barely believe it when I eventually found the Fed Ex facility across the street from the airport AND got my ATM card with plenty of time. This after countless phone calls to make sure it would be there (the most frustrating of which was in Spanglish and quite laborious the day prior, I think I actually lost weight in the effort), taking my life in my hands running across the HUGE street from the airport to find the office, being directed 3 different places by 4 different people (the most incorrect being the woman at the information booth in the airport whose job is to direct people, though close second was a policeman). By the time I reached the highly secure fortress of the FedEx building, I was all sweaty from the humidity and smelled like Lima, which is a bit like fish. Tasty. And I only had to wait half an hour for my package to be retrieved from the short flight of steps upstairs. Miracles. I thought I would treat myself upon return to the airport with an ICED COFFEE (pure luxury for its rarity in S. America) from the Dunkin Donuts there, but when I got back I did not even feel like one. Which was the other sad part of the day, though always good to save money even though I wanted to spend some just because I can access my bank account again! YAY!

And I felt relief getting back to Ecuador and getting back to my groove there - got in on time to Guayaquil, added money to my phone (double yay, I have it again! So resume texts!), had another delay with immigration at the security checkpoint (not sure why I just do not show up in their system), argued with taxi drivers for the fare to the bus terminal, ate a huge tasty sweet corn tamale that cost 50 cents, caught a bus right away, got giddy excited to see banana plantations again on the 5 hour journey back to Cuenca, and let out a HUGE sigh of relief upon walking in the door at Adrian and Julie´s place again. And even better after hugs and tea and catching up (though one of the pet bunnies died, sniff). And talking to my Dad, who had a similar long day of travel and is now in the same time zone as me in New York state to be with my uncle who is in the hospital there. I myself will enjoy having a nice, long, shower and some rest and stability over the next few days. Thanks again to those who have been so supportive and sending me your positive thoughts, I now have plenty to restore myself and project the rest over to my relatives in New York for my uncle´s recovery.

AND, pictures to come soon from the past 3 weeks of adventuring! Triple Yay!