Narrowly averting disaster
I am scheduled to fly into Lima, Peru on Tuesday morning, August 21 for a three week vacation to Peru and Ecuador. During the last couple of weeks, I have been very busy getting ready for my trip - I just finalized my itinerary about a week ago and have recently received all my immunization shots for traveling to these countries. Totally oblivious to the latest events, I was at a local Internet cafe yesterday afternoon in the San Francisco Bay Area, when I innocently opened up an e-mail from a friend of mine in Thailand. In her e-mail, my friend asked me whether I heard about the 7.5 earthquake that rocked Lima, Peru this afternoon. News travels fast in the age of the Internet - and here I was finding out this giant quake in Peru from an e-mail sent to me from Thailand. Later the earthquake’s magnitude was upgraded to 7.9, the epicenter being about 90 miles
southeast of Lima in the Pacific Ocean
In light of the recent events, I guess I will have to reevaluate whether I should postpone my trip. In the next couple of days, I hope to discover the extent of damage to Lima, where I am scheduled to stay or the initial 2 nights of my trip before moving on to Cusco in the Andean highlands. Inasmuch as my 3-week vacation is now in jeopardy, my real concern is for the people who were affected by the quake. My sympathies go out to them as both a concerned human being and traveler. Hopefully, the people of Peru were spared the massive devastation that a 7.9 quake can generate. In the meantime, I will wait for further news. Stay tuned…
Believe it or not, I was vacationing in Kamala Beach, Phuket in December 2004 about 2 weeks before the Giant Tsunami devastated the area, and in September 1989, I left Jamaica about one week before Hurricane Gilbert bulldozed the island. This will have been the 3rd time that as a worldwide traveler that I have narrowly averted being in the middle of a natural catastrophe. I guess, I you could say I have been lucky…
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