Lauren Wille

I followed my two friends past the waiting line and as they went through I was abruptly stopped with a hand in my face and a voice saying “No. You must wait.” I shifted in place, fidgeting with my hands, and crumpling my money in my fist. In moments I would be suspended in air, floating over the Pacific Ocean and hundreds of people.

“You. Come.” The voice said finally.

I walked past the entrance stand and onto the grassy cliff, looking around for my pilot.

“Over there. Hands up.”

I looked in the distance and saw a short man with buff arms and sunglasses waving his hands above his head. I casually walked over to him, hiding my anxiety with instead a nervous smile.

“Can I take my shoes off?” I asked.

“Can you pay me, please?” he said in return.

I uncurled my fingers and handed him three sweaty bills. While inspecting each to make sure they were real, another man began clipping and snapping equipment on me, speaking rapidly in Spanish to my pilot, ignoring my confusion and questions.

“Are you sure this is tight enough? How high are we going? Are we going over the water? Because I don’t know if I’m cool with that. I’m afraid of whales. Are there whales here?”

“Just walk.” My pilot said.

“What?”

“Just walk.” He repeated. “Don’t sit. And when I tell you to run, you run.”

And before I could say another word my feet lifted off the ground, my pilot still instructing me, “Run, run, run.”

The ocean below me seemed to triple in size as we rose higher and higher into the sky. The surfers seemed so small and far away, and the district of Miraflores a landscape inside a snow globe.

The instant we took flight my stomach turned and churned. I felt like I had just taken a shot of tequila, the liquid sizzling in my stomach. I had never even thought that my motion sickness symptoms would kick in, and there was no way I was letting it ruin my epic experience.

As we glided over the beautiful scenery, I wished I had my camera. But I quickly imagined myself losing grasp and watching it fall freely down to the Earth below me.

“I can’t believe this.” I kept saying to my pilot.

“Believe what?”

“That I’m in Peru!”

“Well you better believe it.”

“Holy ****! I’m in Peru! WOOOO!”

I let my worries float away, just as we were over the town. I didn’t speak for the rest of the ride, but instead kept my thoughts to myself. This was my “me time” for the day and I was spending it in Peru. PERU!

After we landed I walked over to my friends, and let out a sigh of satisfaction.

“Well. Sweet. I did it!”