Overwhelmed meets tranquility

I´m normally an independent person, doing stuff on my own, but at the moment I am feeling overwhelmed. The first week that I arrived in Lima I was by myself and met people along the way and just kind of flew by the seat of my pants. I was ok with this and knew from previous travel experience that I had to be flexible and go with the flow. Since I have started my program I have started to feel a little claustrophobic. Don´t get me wrong I get along with the people in my group well, but with being in the city all day, not really leaving our house, day in and day out the same routine I am kind of going a little crazy. I felt very stressed and needed to get out of the city for some fresh air.

For this trip I wanted to take in all the sites and do what I could while here. I teach my kids about Peru and the Nasca lines and was hoping to go there for myself. Well the other group members had the same idea, so we bought our bus tickets on Wednesday. The original plan was to buy our tickets and then head to the center for a ´birthday´ dinner, a few days late, to celebrate; however that is NOT how it panned out. After our class finished at 1 pm we met up with our director and at about 2 I finally tried to book my tickets, but met a dead end. Each time I tried, 3 times, I was met with an error page and we finally went to the mall to buy our tickets. I asked the lady at the mall if my card would be charged, she told me that if I received a code yes, but otherwise no. I felt relieved until I checked my bank account. I had been charged for those attempts and now had 3 extra tickets. I contacted my bank to see if they could stop the charges, but was told they couldn´t. Hopefully they will realize that it was an error and not charge my account, currently pending.

We finally made it to Nasca after a stressful Friday, one teacher didn´t show up, miscommunication. As we got to Nasca our agent at the hostel picked us up and we were now able to rest and get ready for the tour of the Nasca lines, Palpa lines and the museum we had just booked. Our experience in Nasca will be my next post as it will take some time to fill in.

After Nasca lines tour we traveled to Paracas, coast town, and finished our trip. This city is such a welcome and a break from our city life that I do not want to leave. We got to Kokopelli hostel, HIGHLY recommended and just relaxed. Slept like a rock, welcome after Nasca trip, and spent Sunday reading and having time to myself to think and reflect. Love waking up to the ocean! Nothing better as of now. We are off to Lima and back to work in the morning. Stay tuned for our story of Nasca.