Exactly 4018 days ago, on December 9, 2005 at 6:15 am I arrived
at the Chiclayo, Peru airport. Now…I’ve made a lot of bad decisions and wrong
moves in my life but arriving in Chiclayo on that day was not one of them. But
let me back up just a bit. In early 2010 I began writing a memoir. I’m still
working on it. I’ve made a lot of revisions between then and now, but what hasn’t
changed is the very first paragraph of the first chapter. It reads:
“Though I
didn’t know it at the time, an email I sent on Saturday, September 3, 2005 at
approximately 3:00 PM would mark the beginning of what I’ve come to view as the
second phase of my life. The first phase lasted exactly 64 years 8 months and
12 days; the last few years of which had been especially rough with a divorce,
forced early retirement, a ton of money lost in the tech stock crash, and more
recently a relationship that was on its last legs. No…even if I had known that
that period of my life was passing I wouldn’t have mourned it one bit. In fact
I would have celebrated. I would have had an even bigger celebration if I had
known that the coming years were going to more than make up for what I’d gone
through and give me greater happiness than I could ever have imagined. Every
day is better than the last. And that’s the truth.”
So much (all?) of our lives is governed by chance…a chain of
events in that if one little event in that chain had changed, our lives would
be dramatically different. I had a friend in Miami; Dino, who had developed an
internet relationship with a woman in Chiclayo. He wanted to go there to meet
her, and though he spoke Spanish he didn’t want to go alone so asked me to join
him. I didn’t speak Spanish and didn’t even know where Peru was. As an inducement,
he sent me a photo and email address of a friend of the woman he was
communicating with. Her name was Maribel and for the next two months we sent
emails back and forth using Google translator. I felt comfortable and so did
Maribel. I told Dino I was in and to make the flight and hotel arrangements,
which he did.
Going back to my memoir again:
“When Dino phoned a week before our scheduled departure to say he
couldn’t go I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t speak the language and don’t
know anything about the country, culture or customs. How could I even get to
Chiclayo without speaking Spanish? And if I did get there do Maribel and I just
smile and nod at each other for the next seventeen days? What if I get sick? Do
they even have hospitals and doctors there, and if they do how can I get to
them or I tell them what’s wrong with me? These were the questions going
through my mind as I sat at the picnic table next to the patio deck. A friend
had sent an Oleta Adams CD to me and it was playing on the stereo system
inside. I was only half-listening when I heard the lyrics “…and if you get the choice to sit it out or
dance, I hope you dance.” I had pretty much made up my mind I was going,
but those words put the period to it. Too many times in my life I had let
indecisiveness control me. I would go to Peru….I was going to dance.
The plane touched down in Lima at 11:30pm on December 8, 2005. It took
me awhile to get settled down enough to figure out where immigration and customs
were located and what I had to do to get through them but it wasn’t too bad.
The only problem I had was my luggage somehow had gotten misplaced but I
finally located it. It’s a big airport and there were hundreds of people
milling about - seemingly half of them shouting “Taxi Senior?” at me. Feeling
that it would be impolite to ignore them I responded ‘no’, and with my hand
imitated a plane taking off while saying “Chiclayo!” Brilliant, huh?
The plane for Chiclayo wouldn’t depart until 5:15 AM so I had lots of
time to kill. I sat in a chair and tried to sleep a bit but mostly I just
watched, trying to develop an understanding for what I was seeing in this
strange country. About an hour before the plane was to leave I found myself in
a restroom shaving, and experienced the only moment of doubt during the entire
trip. I looked at that tired face staring back at me from the mirror and
asked…” Tom, what the hell are you doing?”
I arrived at the Chiclayo airport at 6:30 AM on December 9th. For having spent 8 hours in 3 different
airports and 9 hours in the air with virtually no sleep I wasn’t feeling too
bad. Standing at the luggage carousel I could see maybe 30 people outside
waiting for other passengers. Maribel wasn’t one of them. After a few minutes
more and still no Maribel I began to wonder. What if this whole thing was a joke?
What if Dino, with the help of Maribel (if that was her real name, and if she
even lived in Peru and if she even existed) had put together a gigantic hoax? I
could picture him laughing his ass off at this exact moment, knowing I’d be
standing in the Chiclayo airport without a clue in the world as to what to do
next.
So now what? Do I try to find my way to some hotel?
I had no Idea what hotel I supposedly had reservations at or how I would get
there. Do I try to communicate with someone in the airport to see if I can get
on the next plane to Lima? The phone call to Miami to hire a hit man to take
out Dino could wait until later. Grabbing my last piece of luggage off the
carousel I took one more look outside and there she was. In the back of my mind
I had wondered if maybe the photos she had emailed to me were old or not even
her. I should have known better. Standing in front of me was a beautiful woman
with that same genuine smile I had seen in the first photo. I walked directly
up to her, said hello and kissed her full on the lips. Maribel smiled and said
“Welcome to Chiclayo Tom.” She was wearing a white blouse, red slacks and held
a blue helium balloon that read Happy Birthday. My 65th birthday
would occur in Peru in 3 more days. Happy birthday to me!”
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