My excitement got the better of me and I stupidly gave myself a two hour wait before baggage check even opened…

I said  goodbye to Fin (my boyfriend at the time) and sat waiting for Kate to arrive. Shit I forgot flip flops.

An hour and a half later Kate arrived with her parents Alison and Tim. My parents couldn’t be arsed to drive to Heathrow and honestly I do not blame them. I think they were also still pissed at me ruining my fancy goodbye meal by getting blackout drunk the previous day. However, maybe they came around when I started weeping in their arms. You see, I think my parents thought I was really chill about gallivanting around South America so I reckon they were shocked when I turned into a 6 yr old crying my eyes out about leaving.

Kate and I shared a house in our second year at Bristol University. We are very much “tweedle Dee and tweedle dumb”, honestly I am sure this experience will be the equivalent to that film, Idiots Abroad. One we are both pretty loud and two we are both pretty damn annoying.  Travelling together was never really the plan until one drunken club night we realised we had no other friends to do it with. History.

The first flight was from Heathrow to Amsterdam.   Amsterdam airport was filled with whispers of corona virus and masks. Every time I coughed it was as if those Child Detection Agents from monsters inc were going to grab me.

SIDE NOTE: I am editing this five months later and oh boy I don’t know what is in store for me.

“GO TO GATE F3”  we boarded our 12 hour flight to Lima.

I think my favourite thing about going on holiday is that wave of hot air you get once you step out the plane but it normally comes with a stinky smell.

We had heard from friends that everything in South America was painfully slow but I’ve been to Sierra Leone and that gave me a patience be-known to man. On the other hand, Kate was mad.  First argument alert. We were queuing to get our tickets for our transfer from the airport and I am not even being dramatic but that damn banoffi pie on the plane hit me like a ton of bricks. Kate was not amused as I tried to run off and leave her to organise everything. Which I swear I won’t do again…

Finally, we arrived at our first hostel, Alpes Lima Kennedy Park. I was very nervous, the last time I had stayed in a hostel was when I was 18 inter-railing with about half of London.

But you get use to it quickly when you are awoken at 1am by a Hungarian man shitting his guts out.