Since Joe Maretta was 10 years old, he has dreamed of visiting Machu Picchu. He saved his paychecks and tips he made working as a barista while attending school in St. Charles. He even took Spanish classes at Elgin Community College so that he could understand the language as he visited Peru this spring.
His vision was that as he turned 20 years old last Saturday, he’d be at Machu Picchu high in the Andes Mountains meditating.
But instead, he found himself locked inside a hotel room in Lima, Peru, with his uncle in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, and the two are worried about how they’ll get back home.
Maretta and his uncle Adam Francisco, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, left on March 16 when travel to Peru was still open. They said that while they were making a connecting flight from Miami to Lima, the Peruvian president announced he was shutting down the country effective at midnight.
As soon as they landed in Lima, Maretta said health officials got on the plane and told everyone they should immediately book a flight home and be out by 11:59 p.m. that night.
Maretta and Francisco waited in line for six hours at the airport, but by the time they reached the ticket counter, there were not enough tickets for them to both get on the plane together. And commercial flights they originally purchased for less than $1,000 each were now selling for $5,000 each, Maretta’s mother Christine Kray said.
While the U.S. Embassy in Lima is working to arrange charter flights for Americans, the men believe they will be one of the last to get a flight out because the priority is transporting the elderly, people who are sick and women and children. The 15-day quarantine in Peru is set to expire on March 31, but could be extended.
Going to Peru was an accomplishment Maretta had been looking forward to, he said. Maretta said he had a rough childhood growing up and was bullied, and his escape from it all was to explore nature.
“As a kid, I was told I have big eyes and always wanted to take in as much of the world as I could,” Maretta said. “I made a promise to myself that one day I would go there.”
As he neared his 20th birthday, he thought it was time to make a big step toward becoming the person he wanted to be. When Francisco said he was interested in going as well, Maretta began researching the culture and language in Peru.
“I figured when I went to Machu Picchu I’d feel like I was on top of the world,” Maretta said. “I promised myself that someday I’d stand on top of the world, even just for a second. I knew I needed to make this happen for myself.”
Instead, he has been stuck in a hotel room and the only time he gets to explore the city is on short walks to the grocery store each day.
In the hotel room with cabin fever, Francisco, 35, and Maretta have been finding ways to entertain themselves for the last few days, like playing chess and using the WiFi on their phones. Each day, they receive emails from the embassy with updates, but right now they are living day-by-day in uncertainty, Francisco said.
The men had planned to stay in a hotel for two nights and then travel to various hostels to save money. Now, the trip has turned far costly than they imagined. They were supposed to return home on March 23.
Francisco has created a GoFundMe to help support their expenses inside the hotel and for new flights home, which he estimates will end up costing between $7,000 and $10,000.
He worries about losing his job because he is not home and has had to burn through most of his vacation days already. Francisco was supposed to be closing on a house this week, and is unsure how the situation will turn out.
Maretta’s mother Christine Kray said she called the U.S. Embassy in Lima the day before the duo left and asked if there were any travel restrictions. She said she was told that U.S. travelers were welcome, and she felt OK sending her son there.
As a health care worker, Kray said she was tracking cases of COVID-19 constantly and saw less cases in Peru than in the U.S.
“I thought it might be a safer place for him to be,” Kray said. “But now I have no idea when my son is coming home. I can’t even explain the emotions I’ve gone through here as his mom trying to get him home.”
Maretta, who graduated from St. Charles East High School in 2018, said he’ll return someday to Peru to complete his dream of going to Machu Picchu, but it’ll be a while before he can save up enough money again.
“It’s really nerve-wracking just sitting here and thinking about the fact that we’re so close to the mountains I wanted to go to,” Maretta said. “We are supposed to be celebrating, but instead we are prisoners of a hotel.”
