A Week Away
No, not a week away from starting my travels but a week away from sitting in front of my boss to tell him “I’m here to turn in my 2 weeks notice.” When I left Boeing (my previous Employer), I was thrilled and felt no remorse leaving the company that had paid for my graduate program in full. It was time for me to leave them after the loss of a major Contract. And maybe I was not as scared because I actually had a new job lined up. But I have a feeling I’m going to be a nervous wreck when I leave this job. I actually enjoy the team tremendously and my managers have given me great responsibility and challenging work. I do work some extensive hours and I worry that I am becoming to specialized but it’s still not easy to leave people that have been good to you. And I’m not considering asking for a leave of absence because where I want to relocate, they do not have an office and to be honest, I’m ready for a change. A new place to live, new work, new friends, new environment, new everything…a fresh start. So I know I’m making the right decision, but when there is no future job lined up, it’s going to make anyone’s heart beat a little faster than normal.
And in about 5 weeks I head off to Peru. My journey will start in Lima for an overnight stay in the airport. I just hope these bootsnall members are correct when they say it is perfectly safe to sleep in the airport. I’ll continue on to the Amazon jungle where I mainly hope to see some monkeys. Then off to Cusco for the all impressive Inca Trail and my last tour ends in Puno to visit the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. Fortunately, I made a friend through Lonely Planet who is from Portland and we will be travel buddies for about half of my trip. Sharing a hostel and visiting Puno together. She sounds surprisingly normal over the phone and via e-mail and we seem to have some similar interests.
And some things I have learned while researching for my Peru trip:
• Flights to Lima are more expensive than flights to Europe
• The Inca Trail is closed in February for maintenance and the Porters vacation
• September-March is rainy season so expect to be hailed on for several hours a day. Unfortunately that is when I will be there but I think the Inca Trail will be much less crowded.
• Don’t give money or sweets to the children that come and beg for it
• Guinea pig is a trademark food in Peru
• Don’t drink the water
• Expect to get sick from the high altitude
• I think I can live off of less than $10 a day for food
And on another note, I had a nightmare last night about a flight from Lima to Cusco. And today I have a massive headache which I think is due to the yellow fever vaccine I received yesterday.
Tags: Leaving my job, Peru
