Bienvenidos a Perú

As I write this, I´m at the bus terminal in dusty Tacna, the southermost town in Perú. My compañeros de viaje (ahora, Kevin, Kristina and the always effervescent Alicia) and I are crowded into the small bus company office, using their free internet and second floor vantage point to contemplate the bustling terminal (complete with random bangs and explosions, a regular South American cacophony). We´re on the first leg of our journey, jumping off from the north of Chile into the heart of Perú, Lago Titicaca and, ultimately, Machu Picchu. This is where we begin to truly feel the spirit of adventure, as we try to adhere to the warnings of DON´T DRINK THE WATER and STAY AWAY FROM FRESH VEGETABLES, keeping a close eye on our belongings and feeling the espiritu of carpe diem that surrounds this whole trip.
Peruvians, in my immediate and extremely limited experience, are nice and excellent speakers, enunciating their Spanish calmly and easily (the complete opposite of the frenetic Chileans, who drop letters and syllables like it was going out of style, rushing their words and gesticulating wildly). We all stick out like sore thumbs here, the light skinned gringos with the fancy backpacks. Our taxi driver cautioned us to be careful in Tacna, since there´s little police presence and we´re complete strangers to the dusty brown hills of Southern Perú.
We crossed the border, got the stamps in our passports, and continue forward. But far more than physical borders, this is a journey into the heart of our experience, as we cement experiences that will, I sense, later define this era of our lives.