I am preparing for our Peruvian vacation. That means putting in long hours at the office, contacting our vigilant neighbors, paying extra attention to the garden, and slowly emptying the refrigerator of perishable goods.
Packing is an ordeal unto itself. Last Thursday I threw everything I wanted to bring into a pile, with the goal of steadily culling unnecessary articles of clothing until I was left with but the bare essentials. Instead, the pile has been augmented with specialized sports bras, moisture-wicking socks, and a handful of tampons (I found out that Peru’s sanitary products are stuck in the middle ages.) And despite a lifetime of toilet paper use, I am unable to visually estimate how much toilet paper I will require for a five-day trek into the Andes. There are so many variables.
I’ve been scaring myself by reading and re-reading the travel precautions for Peru. Around the time I read “Don’t walk around with debit- or creditcards in your pocket. Leave them in a safe place, when you do not directly need them, because tourists have been kidnapped and forced to take out money each day for a period of a few days” (on Wikitravel). I started mentally berating Mr. P for not choosing a vacation locale that offered a bit of respite from my already overwrought existence. All my co-workers go to Cape Cod, to the Jersey shore, to Maine, and I’m going to a fringe Third World country where I will be perpetually waiting to get bit by a spider, to collapse from altitude sickness, to develop wrenching diarrhea, or to get hauled away to a dirt basement and held prisoner until my bank account is emptied of cash.
Aah, whatever. After college, I’ve never really had a true vacation.
