Free The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett Page A

or breaking up altogether. Neither of us was quite ready or willing to disband the safe and comfortable partnership we’d built together, so we’d eventually kiss and make up, fading our confrontations into the background for weeks on end.
    Each time I’d believed that the answers would just have to reveal themselves over the course of the year, but as the monthsticked by, it became painfully clear that no mythical relationship fairy was going to sprinkle magic dust over us. Suddenly, the round-the-world trip that Amanda, Holly, and I had fantasized about at Iguazú Falls felt like my salvation from a precarious and uncertain future. I’d been dating the same guy for nearly half a decade and still wasn’t sure if “till death do us part” would ever roll off our tongues. Maybe some distance—from Brian, from New York City, from the status quo—was the only way to know for certain.
    I longed to feel as inspired and alive as I had when I’d made the radical move to Manhattan with only two suitcases and a sliver of space on Amanda’s living room floor. And since I never wanted to feel as if I’d given something up to get married and settle down, it was now or never to do something drastic. So from the second I’d told the girls I was in, I’d never had a moment’s pause about committing to the trip.
    It’s not to say that the long road to departure hadn’t been a bumpy one. But since boarding up my Manhattan life weeks ago—all that was left of my earthly possessions wedged in my parent’s minivan—I’d felt only giddiness and enthusiastic anticipation for the journey to come. And though I figured pangs of fear or sorrow, even regret might rear their ugly heads eventually, right now I was happy to pretend that Amanda, Holly, and I were merely embarking on another extraordinary South American vacation. Luckily, Amanda returned with good news: Holly’s bags were on the next flight from Miami and would be delivered to our hostel that night. With that, the three of us finally escaped the baggage area and headed toward our first of many customs lines.
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    A fter a perfunctory two-day sweep of Lima—our designated hub during our six-week Peruvian sampler—wefound ourselves back at the airport. Travel weariness mostly alleviated and three backpacks tucked safely into the belly of a tiny local aircraft, Amanda, Holly, and I began the 350-mile journey to Cusco.
    Perched among the clouds high in the Andes, the ancient “City of the Sun” was infinitely more breathtaking than we’d imagined. We reached the town center just as dawn began to wriggle its way through the frosted mountain peaks. Emerging from the dingy airport shuttle into the sun-soaked Plaza de Armas, we felt like Dorothy and Toto first discovering Technicolor. A vibrant kaleidoscope of emerald-painted fountains, freshly pruned flower gardens exploding with every color, lollipop peddlers, and rosy-cheeked “munchkins” swaddled in patchwork shawls twirled around us.
    The Baroque-style Cusco Cathedral and historic Church of La Compañía de Jesús stood watch over the cobblestone square. Rainbow-striped flags soared above whitewashed buildings with sapphire and cobalt blue doorways. Shrunken grandmothers in traditional Quechua garb coaxed llamas into tourists’ photos in exchange for a few soles. One thing was for sure: Cusco was certainly no place like home.
    Eager to shed our forty-pound portable closets and do some exploring, we yanked out our Let’s Go Peru to find directions to Loki hostel, a supposed backpackers’ paradise I’d booked online weeks before. Following a crude street map, we slowly navigated the narrow brick roads until we reached a steep, crumbling staircase that stretched endlessly toward the crystal blue skyline. A staggering 11,000 feet (estimated) above sea level, Cusco’s dramatically high elevation could