I arrived at the early hour of 1 AM, spotted my name on one of the many signs waiting outside of baggage claim and basically just went where I was told. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried about putting my life in the hands of people and culture I knew nothing about. I really started to questioning my situation when we turned down a dark alley towards the pacific ocean and the driver locked all of the doors! At this point I started making mental notes of where police cars were located, and if I decided to jump out of the car, how long would it take me to run back. It was about as helpless of a feeling that you can get. The only thing keeping me from panicking was how friendly the Peruvians actually are.

The next morning, on the drive back to the airport for a flight to Huaraz, I couldn’t help but notice how poor Lima really is. It seems the whole city was rebuilt 50 years ago with buildings only made to last half of that time. Just picture an abandon industrial area and that’s the way every area looked. Another first impression was that pretty much anything goes when it comes to driving. Sure there are lines on the road guiding you in the right direction and forming lanes, but those area complete waste of paint. If you feel you can fit through a gap or even over the sidewalk then you might as well join everyone else and go for it.

The flight to Huaraz was more of the same. A ten-seater, propeller plane waited for us on the runway. With only a curtain separating us from the pilots, we flew straight up to 11,000 feet where the town sits. Huaraz was all but destroyed in 1970 by a massive earthquake. Over 10,000 people lived here then, only 91 survived. It doesn’t look like they have done too much to rebuild since then.

Today is mostly a travel day for us. We have a press conference on Huaraz to talk about why we are here, and then it is a long drive to Chavin to visit some schools over the next few days. Our goal is to bring sports to the schools to help them learn basic skills from interacting with each other in a positive manner to promoting a healthy lifestyle.