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I know it’s not a pandemic yet, even though Wolf Blitzer keeps saying that level 5 means that a pandemic is “imminent”.   We’ve been planning this trip for a long time, and we certainly don’t want to overreact.  We’ve prepaid for the two nights in Aguas Calientes, paid deposits for our rooms in Cusco and Ollantaytambo, and the airlines are suspending charges only on canceled trips to Mexico.   On the other hand, I don’t want to be in Peru to hear that all flights to the United States have been canceled.  Not that I’d mind staying in Peru a few weeks – I just couldn’t afford it.  I doubt that all flights would be canceled, but you never know.  I remember after 9/11 reading about all the people from the U.S. stranded in Europe.   So it’s at least possible, however unlikely.

As of today, there has been one case of this virus in Peru.  It was a person arriving in Lima directly from Cancún.  Our flight flies directly to Lima from Miami, so I don’t expect that we would have any Mexico connection there.  And as of today there are no cases in Florida.  So I really don’t think that on-board contamination would be much of a risk during that flight to Lima.  There may even be a plus side (as tourists).  Smaller crowds, less crowded planes.  Like I said, a plus for the tourist, not necessarily for the airline or the hotel or the vendor.

On the other hand…. I imagine that being a tourist in Cusco, at 11,000 feet, un-aclimated, and having the flu (of any kind) would be pretty scarey.   Even if you just had minor altitude sickness (headache, shortness of breath, etc), you’d be thinking “Do I have the flu”?

We leave for Florida in a week, and we’ll be there for 5 days before flying to Peru, so that gives us 12 days to make up our minds.  The situation seems to be changing rapidly from day to day, so we’ll probably have a much clearer picture of what’s going on by then.  If the trip were today, we’d go.   If the trip were today except to MEXICO, we would stay home.  Even then, not so much out of fear of the flu as that everything is closed and there would be nothing to do and nowhere to eat.

When we heard that Mexico City had also had an earthquake, we thought, “Oh, those poor people.  The economy, then the flu, now an earthquake”.  That’s a lot of stress.

We worry about our friends in Mexico.  Sherry is especially concerned about her friends in Oaxaca.  A map of the “flu zone” shows Mexico City south through Oaxaca State, and then a narrow band up the Gulf Coast.  Oaxaca has had it’s share of troubles in the last few years, which drove away most of the tourists.  And Oaxaca State is the poorest state in Mexico, so it needs the tourists.  This won’t help.  And Oaxaca is great.  A wonderful place.  And once you get there, it’s cheap.  After this is all over, you should plan a trip to Oaxaca Mexico. We will certainly go back.  Maybe this winter.  Our problem is deciding between what we know and someplace new.  We would like to explore the Yucatan.  Ideally, we would do both, but they’re pretty far apart with no easy way to connect them.  Either an expensive plane ride or a long long bus ride.  We have 6 months to decide.

By the way, at the top of this page…. see the little symbol on the right with the letters RSS beside it?    Just in case you don’t know this… that’s called a feed.  If you click on it, you can be notified each time there’s a new addition to this blog.  That way you won’t have to keep checking back.  It will walk you through it.  You can set it up to use Google, Yahoo, Live Bookmarks or Bloglines, just take your pick.  So, stayed tuned (via RSS) or check back.  Will they go or won’t they?   The continuing adventures of Bill & Sherry.

Tags:   Aguas Calientes · cancel our trip? · Cusco · flu · Learn Spanish · Learning Spanish · Machu Picchu · Mexico · Oaxaca Mexico · Ollantaytambo · pandemic · Peru · speak Spanish · Travel SpanishNo Comments