Lima, Peru, Day 1

Well, we’re in port, Lima, Peru. I am on duty today, but last night I had liberty, so this latest story is hot off the presses.
Liberty in South America has a lot of restrictions. They care a lot about how Americans look, so they have rules like calling in to the ship twice a night and of course, if we have duty, we have to be back to the ship the next morning by 8 a.m.—earlier (about 7:30) if you have watch.
We went out on liberty and decided to take overnight liberty, even though we had to get up at 5 a.m. to catch a bus back to the ship to make it for duty. Since we didn’t really plan on sleeping much, we decided to get a bed at a hostel. We had no bags, and it was only $7 for the night, so it was a good deal to have a place to stay. We went out for the night and partied until about 3 a.m. before turning in and going back to the hostel. Our one friend had turned in early, and he had the alarm clock. When we showed up at the hostel, he wasn’t there, and we had no idea where he was. We assumed that waiting here would be the best thing—that he would find his way back. We also knew that we were meeting at 5:25 at the hotel next to the bus stop if we ever got separated. It was our fail-safe.
We had no alarm clocks (we didn’t even plan on staying out overnight, but met a group of girls at a bar who invited us to a club, and we couldn’t say no) so we told the guy at the front desk we needed a wakeup at 5 a.m. to get back to the ship. We explained how important it was, and that he needed to make sure we were awake. He promised to throw water on our faces if we didn’t get up.
He didn’t.
Next thing I know, I wake up to my lost friend screaming, “Let’s go, let’s go!” Turns out, he couldn’t find the hostel. He got a room at another hotel and showed up at the fail-safe spot at the right time, but we never showed, so he assumed we had slept in. Somehow he found the hostel in the morning when it was light out. I looked at my watch. 6:25. We had just over an hour to get to the bus, take the 45 minute ride to the ship, change, and get on watch. It would never happen. The consequences for being late for duty are severe. In general, with few exceptions, you won’t be allowed to leave the ship for the duration of this port as well as the next two or three. Considering we only have 1 port left after this, it means not leaving the ship for 2 months until San Diego. No bueno.
We were dressed and out the door in under 90 seconds and started running toward the bus stop 10 blocks away. We still had time. If we could get a bus that leaves before 6:45, we’d be okay. We were told we weren’t allowed to take taxis because of their penchant for robberies, and even though there were approved taxi companies, they couldn’t get us onto the base anyway—we had to be with an official USN bus to get on. I ran faster than the other two members of my group, and at 6:40, I rounded the corner to see the bus. I broke into a sprint for the bus about 100 yards away… And then the bus started driving in the opposite direction.
At this point, I’d slept for maybe three hours—probably less. I was still half-drunk. I had been running at a pretty good pace for the last 10 minutes, a little over a mile, in shoes that were not meant for running, and I was starting to feel it. I hadn’t drank water in 10 hours, since you need to buy bottled water here and nothing was open when we left the club. I’ve heard stories about mothers overturning cars to save their children, or the man after the battle of Marathon who ran 25 miles, only to squeak out the word, “Victory” before dropping dead. But I never knew what went through those people’s minds or how they did it… Until I saw that bus driving away, and my liberty for the next two months with it.
I started running faster. I don’t know how, but I did. (My friend can attest to that.) It was like the last scene in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” when he’s running back home. I was cutting through parks, cutting corners, doing anything I could to keep with the bus. I was waving my arms and screaming at the bus as I was running, creeping closer and closer to the bus. I followed it for about 10 blocks—a flat out sprint for 5 minutes, until it ran a stop sign and turned onto a main street, as if it were hell-bent on leaving us behind. I now know how Carl Yaztremski felt when Bucky (Bleepin’) Dent hit a homerun to win the pennant in 78’. The grainy footage shows Yaz’s knees buckle when he sees the ball go over the fence—as his soul is sucked out of him and all hope is lost. That’s how I felt. I stood there for a second watching the bus fade away before remembering something: the bus was on a one-way road going away from the ship. It had to double back on another 1-way street. It was our last hope. I started sprinting again and ran back onto the main thoroughfare and stopped in the middle of the street. Lo and behold, there was a bus driving right toward me, just like it should have been. I stood in the middle of the street screaming and waving my arms. The bus stopped and I jumped for joy. I’d done it! I was a hero! I ran over to the side of the bus and went to get on before realizing that it was the wrong bus. I won’t repeat the words that I shouted here, but I was mad. The bus was gone, and so was our liberty. It was 6:50.
The worst part was that I had to run all the way back to the bus stop where my friends were, even after sprinting for 5 straight minutes. In the end, we had to take a cab back to the port and talk our way into the base before running across the base to get to the ship. We were there by 7:28. Two minutes to spare. Somehow, we made it back to the ship, and nobody even knew what happened. We’re tired and hungover, and ran something like 2 miles while drunk. I’m sore in places I didn’t know you could be sore. But we made it back on time and nobody’s the wiser.
Thankfully, I have duty today to rest. We have two more days of liberty on Saturday and Sunday. Instead of 15 hours of time off, we have 48. Who knows what will happen then…