I got up on one Sunday morning with an acute hangover and declared to my roommate that I needed a vacation. Since a couple of months, I have been monitoring flight ticket prices to the following destinations: South America, Morocco and Egypt. Within an hour then, I had booked a flight to Lima.

So all I had at that point was a valid ticket to visit Peru two weeks from then. I was totally clueless about things to do there, and I didn’t have a tourist visa, or an approval of vacation from work or an approval of break from school or any knowledge of Spanish, and finances in jittery… and so on. I discovered that I knew nothing, nothing at all about Peru other than that the Guava fruit was called Peru (पेरू) in Marathi and I like green Guavas a lot.

Obviously, things started falling in place; I got all approvals, arranged for vitamin M and did my research thoroughly. In no time, I was on my way…

– – –

I’m back from Peru now and I had lot of fun and adventure packed into those two weeks spent there, almost like a zip file, which left me craving for more. I also learnt a lot of things about being a better traveler, better citizen and about the infinite world out there that is waiting to be explored. I met several interesting people who had been on the road for as short as a week to as long as over a year – wow. I am barely a beginner in my quest to travel the world.

I kept a journal during this trip and over the next few weeks I’ll post relevant scraps from it. It will, hopefully, give you a preview that’s tempting enough for you to pack your bags and get going.

As always, comments and suggestions are sought and appreciated.