I loathe packing. It is by far the worst thing about traveling. I guess some of my hate for packing can be directly linked back to my hate for cleaning and organizing, but that is irrelevant. Right now I am resentful because packing reminds me of all the things that are going to go wrong over the next three months. I cannot pack like a normal person. I have to prepare for the worse because it will happen. If you didn't already know, I am a magnet for those terrible things that have a one in a million chance of occurring. Yeah. They ALL happen to me. If you still are in disbelief, let's recap my adventures in Peru to prove how I have terrible things happen to me.
1. My plane from Mobile to Houston was delayed because of rain. Then my flight from Houston to Lima was delayed five hours due to repairs. Thank God they didn't make us take that plane. I'm not sure if I would have gotten on. But, it still majorly sucked that ISA had said don't arrive after midnight or else you have to taxi your own way to the hotel and our flight wasn't getting there til 3am. I immediately went into panic mode and tried to pre-plan my conversation with the Peruvian taxi driver. Thankfully they took pity on us and we ISA picked us up anyways.
2. Upon the 3am arrival in Lima I was thrown into the most horrific of circumstances. My suitcase had not arrived. The lady working in the baggage claim tried to tell me that some man with a red suitcase with black straps had accidentally taken mine, but I assured her my bright, fluorescent orange suitcase without any straps could not have been mistaken for anything other than itself. Thank God I had bought flight insurance and packed a ton of stuff into my carry on in case my luggage had been stolen. I always thought buying the insurance was a jinx proof thing to do. Whenever someone is prepared for emergencies, nothing ever happens, but not to me. I had to go the entire three days in Lima without my luggage and spent exorbitant amounts of time shopping while everyone else got to see the Pacific Ocean. Oh, well. It reappeared once I got to Cusco. Not much missing either.
3. You wouldn't think it was possible to lose something between the taxi and the front door of the house, but my wallet sure did play the disappearing act as if it were the World Champion. I pulled out my wallet to pay my share of the fare and never saw it again. As mentioned above, I went to Peru overly prepared for emergency. I had a file in my room containing all of my credit card numbers and the numbers to call. All I had to find was a calling card. I also had an additional wallet in my room with an emergency only credit card. Yes. I was crazily prepared for emergency.
4. Unfortunately this crazily preparedness only applied to money. Not health. I caught two nasty stomach viruses along the way. The first one was right before my trip into the Amazon jungle. My coordinator made me go to the doctor which was a strange experience. Let's just say no doctor in the States would find it necessary to place the stethoscope underneath my bra to listen to my heartbeat.
5. I lived in what is best described as my host family's guest house. It was literally just one building with my bedroom and a bathroom (no door separating the two), but it definitely led to some crazy circumstances. Now, to get to the room, I had to take the outside exit from the kitchen and through the "courtyard." My host mom had told me to listen for the click of the kitchen door closing. I assumed the same went for my bedroom. Nope. The doorknob did rip off though. Oops. Then, some how I managed to severely break the toilet. Water was coming out the bottom and leaking all over my dirty clothes. I was walking in a puddle every time I entered my bathroom. Not to self, there is such thing as flushing too hard. My host mom had given me a heater to keep me warm. She said do not use it for more than thirty minutes. Exactly thirty minutes go by, I unplug it and the outlet was melted. Later on I realized the extremeness of how weak the power is in South America. Apparently it is a bad idea to run the lights, hot water and heater at the same time. It blows a fuse. I was just trying to prevent the shivers when I got out of the shower.
6. The cat shit in my bed, and I slept in it. This happened as a result of blowing the electricity so the handy man had my door open and my stomach viruses. I couldn't smell anything and it wasn't until I saw the the brown stuff on my shirt the next day that something shitty had happened. I still can't wear that shirt.
As you can see, I have to assume that my things are going to be stolen or lost at some point this summer. There's no way around it since I can't jinx proof myself. I also have to assume that my clothes will either disappear in the wash or be permanently damaged for unforeseeable reasons. Obviously, I still haven't packed and don't plan on starting tonight, but as my dear friend Rafe told me tonight "I still got 40 some odd hours."
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