I’m quite lucky to work for an awesome company. I knew there was a great atmosphere among all the colleagues in Europe, but recently I found out that this company is filled with amazing people. Last October-November I found myself competing in a three-week long race with different challenges to complete. I had never met my team members, who lived on opposite sites of the world, and we had to work together a lot to complete our tasks. I found myself running around the streets of Bucharest, trying to find strangers to take crazy photos with me and I was dancing in front of the statue of Vlad the impaler.
A few weeks later the good news arrived: my team had made it! We were some of the lucky people that scored the most points and were invited to a camp in Peru. This camp isn’t your average business meeting, but a place to finally meet some colleagues from all over the world, see Peru, and connect and party together. The work party took 6 days, but I’d arranged to stay 2 extra weeks, so that I could see some more of this amazing country. I flew to Lima at the end of February. I’d never thought of going to South America, but I quickly fell in love with Peru. What an incredibly beautiful country. I really hope I get to go back one day. Anyway, I had a blast and in my next posts I’ll share all of my experiences.
My adventure started in Lima. I got picked up from the airport and driven to my hotel. Never ever had I experienced such luxury, since I mostly do things the backpacker way. The next day more and more people arrived, but I hardly knew anyone. So I got over my fears and started talking to random people, joining tables filled with people I didn’t know. In the next days we would do several activities around Lima and Paracas, I would meet dozens of people and have the time of my life. Everything was just beyond my wildest dreams. We fit so much stuff in a day that it felt like weeks. I could finally meet some of the people I only knew from social media and I could finally speak face to face with my team mates.
I feel like during my time in Peru, a night with 5 hours of sleep was a luxury. There was always a reason to get up early or go to bed late. One such early mornings was the day we saw the Nazca lines. After breakfast we were driven to the Pisco international airport, which for now just seems to take passengers flying to Nazca. We were weighed, checked in, received a boarding pass, went through security and sat in a huge, empty hall to await our flight. A man came to give us some instructions which were mainly focused on preventing motion sickness. He was hilarious.
After what seemed like a long wait, we could board our aircraft, a little 12 seater. I was right behind the co-pilot. We flew along the sea and then towards the Nazca desert. Suddenly the co-pilot woke us up because we’d arrived at our destination. Below us were dozens of lines in the sand. Some were just rectangles, other were shaped like animals. Nobody really knows why these Nazca lines are here, but they are believed to be very old. We flew over about 10 of the most spectacular patterns. Each time we tilted to the right and then to the left, to make sure everyone got a good view. Unfortunately this movement is not the most natural and can cause some motion sickness. I started to feel a little off right when it ended and we flew back to base. Perhaps I should have followed the instructions, but I made it through the flight alright anyway.
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