I have been trying to get a hold of Jackie all day since she was on her way to Sao Paulo to fly into Bolivia. She and I were planning on meeting up when i flew into La Paz. I was sitting chatting with my roommate when my phone rang, it was an unknown number so I excitedly answered it...
"We have a problem"
And with those 4 words our trip to South America came to a screeching halt. Long story short, I was 20 minutes late to work, frantically trying to figure out how to salvage our trip. Through a scratchy phone connection I come to find out that Jackie's documentation of her Yellow Fever vaccine (which is required to get into Peru and Bolivia) wasn't being accepted in the airport and they wouldn't let her leave Brazil.
She was scrambling to try and figure out what to do, meanwhile I was frantically searching the internet for possible other South American destinations. What if we went to Chile? Or Argentina? All great options until the only flights I could find came to about 600 US dollars. What was a relatively inexpensive trip, was rapidly becoming astronomical!
This is when Jackie's phone card runs out and I have no way to get a hold of her. So, i reluctantly drive to work, constantly checking my phone for any word from her. An hour passes and I anxiously try to distract myself pouring drinks for the 5 customers that WILL NOT DRINK FAST ENOUGH! Come on people order something complicated so I can be busy and not FREAK OUT over what I am going to be doing!
Then my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. It's Jackie's mom (whom I have never met), calling to tell me that Jackie just left her a message stating that she was jumping on a plane back to SFO and to call and tell me that. f@#$@%^s@%#^@%#@@f*ck&*@#&!!!!!!!!!!!
Yup! So the rest of my night was spent in contemplation over if I could do it alone (mom rest easy that wasn't what I decided to do, but it was almost) or if I was just going to cancel my ticket, call it a loss and find something else to do. All day today, was spent in nervous anticipation for Jackie's call that she made it home safely. I have to say that I was being a bit impatient. I called her phone several times and finally it started ringing about one o'clock in the afternoon. I was greeted with Jackie's much happier voice laughing that she had just turned it on 3 seconds before I had called.
Long story short (again! does that mean that I really am making a short story longer?!?!?!) We both came to the conclusion that we were not about to give up and stay at home. I mean, I still had the two weeks off and she still had the budget. But, where? We could road trip it to San Diego and stay with my friends there. We could camp along the coast. We could go to San Fran. We could go to Napa. We could fly to Bermuda, Jamaica, Cabo, Hawaii, Costa Rica, ect. The only thing stopping us was, that Jackie and I would have to purchase another plane ticket, thus dipping into the limited funds that we had saved for our GRAND ADVENTURE. I still had a ticket to use but Jackie would be starting fresh.
Not willing to give up on the opportunity to get out of town, I had sent my feelers out to see if anyone would want two fun outgoing girls to stay with them for two weeks..... and luckily my friend Ian in Hawaii took the bait! So I spent the next few hours trying to find the best fare and see if we could possibly fly out there on our limited budget.
Thank the travel Gods and the nice women at American Airlines! We are on our way to Hawaii monday. Machu Picchu or cliff jumping in Kailua? I think both sound pretty nice. I mean I'd prefer to go to someplace that I have never been. But really, how privileged am I that I can even have to opportunity to be having this dilemma. I'll take an adventure on the beautiful beaches of Oahu over staying home and working! Also, to throw in a little extra flavor to our adventure, we plan on stopping in Napa for wine tasting and girls pillow fight night :) before we fly out...
So cheers to last minute arrangements, great friends, friendly people, and the ability to have the world literally at our fingertips. ***SIGH***** (that was a really big one in case you were wondering). South America isn't safe yet, as Jackie so aptly put it "this wasn't our only chance for South America and whatever we do is gonna be awesome" I agree this new trip will be awesome. How could it not! THE ONLY WORKING WE WILL BE DOING IS ON OUR TANS!!!!!!!!!!! (wow i am really cheesy!)
This little blog is kinda fun and as you all know I am slightly narcissistic (I did write a quite lengthy paper on narcissism, and it really is a trait that most of us have). So check back. You may get to read more amusing stories of my antics and possibly view some great photos of our crazy adventure to Hawaii via Napa and San Francisco.
