14 Days in Peru #1 - Why I turned a blog post about falling sick in Peru into a book instead

Machu Picchu during our weekend trip to Aguas Calientes, the town that sits at the bottom of the mountain pass that leads up to the site.

When I first sat down to write about my trip to Peru from last year, I never set out to write a book about it.

It was always meant to be a one-off blog post that I’ve wanted to write for a while now, given how much I’ve been thinking about it recently and why I’m still processing it.

To give some context, I went out to Peru back in August of 2023 to help out with conserving a heritage site just outside of Cusco, the country’s capital. It was a volunteering project that aimed to promote global heritage and advance research into the history of Peru and, in turn, of South America as well.

However, the project also gave us the chance to explore the surrounding area of Cusco, so we could visit some amazing sites, meet locals, do some fun activities and just have a fun time together whilst we were there.

And for the most part, I did enjoy myself quite a lot for the first few days.

That is, until I got sick with a pretty nasty parasitic infection one day and found myself landed in hospital for four days and three nights – yay!

The Andenes Zurite, a series of terraces that swerve through the Zurite province just to the west of Cusco. Just up further ahead was the site we were working on during the entire two-week project. 

It was certainly a lot to process and even though I did eventually recover from the infection, the whole ordeal really affected me because my mental health hit rock bottom and I was still feeling poorly even after I did return home.

But still, after a few months had passed, I decided that I was going to write about my experience so I could better process what had happened.

And also, I’ve been wanting to write and tell stories for a while now and seeing that I’m currently at the ripe age of 25 – soon to be 26! – I realised that now was the time to get started.

Because if I didn’t start now, when would I?

I’ve already put off my goal to become a writer several times now and it’s getting to the point where time is marching on and my opportunities to sit down and write are becoming more far and few between, especially as I’m currently working a full-time job.

I’ve also been planning to set up my own blog for a while now as well, and when I put two and two together - BOOM! I could write my story as a blog post! Yippee!

So I sat down, opened up my laptop, created a new Word document and started typing away.

Now, in my head, I thought the post would be about a few pages long, take about 10 – 15 minutes at most to read.

However, when the words started coming out and I was writing more and more pages, detailing everything that happened before, during and after the events in Peru, I started to realise that this was not going to work as a blog post.

I was not even half way through writing my story that I had already churned out 11 pages of A4 paper, or 5588 words to be more exact, as of the date of this post. Now, if the average person reads around 238 words per minute (WPM), then it would take them roughly 23 minutes just to get through those 11 pages.

Given how much of the story I still have left to write, my first draft will probably be about 40 - 50 pages long and if my calculations are correct, then this means it will take an average of about 92 minutes to read the entire thing.

Now, no one is going to invest 92 minutes of their time on a blog post from a person that they have never heard of.

Because after all, everyone is frantically searching for ideas, research, people, content and a multitude of other things across the vast sea that we now call the internet.

Who on earth would have enough time to read some random person’s ramblings about them getting sick 6,000 miles away from home?

So I knew I had a problem the moment my page count hit over 10 and I was nowhere near finishing my story. If I was going to get my post any attention, something needed to change.

Hence, I had to present myself with two choices:

Number one - I can go back over the current draft, cut out 90% of what I have written so far and find another way to tell my story in 3 - 4 pages. This means I will have to cut out a lot of important details that I feel are necessary to making sure that the story makes sense.

Number two - I continue writing the draft as normal, see how far I get and whether I have enough material to turn it into a full-length book.

With those two options on my mind, I spent the day at work pondering over these options and deducing what I was going to do with my draft.

But as my mind raced over the possibilities that my second choice presented, thinking about how I could turn my current draft into my first ‘proper’ book and use it to kickstart both my blog and my writing career as well, I very quickly came to a decision.

I was going to turn my post into a book!

Because that is the only way I am going to be able to fully tell my story and give it the space that it needs to feel more alive and palatable.

The Salt Mines of Maras, which have been mined for salt since pre-Inca times.

I could even use it as an opportunity to talk more about Peruvian history and culture as well. As cliched as it was, we did get to visit Machu Picchu and other sites as well like Ollantaytambo, Pisac, the Salt Mines and even an alpaca and llama farm!

We also did a community outreach day by teaching English to a group of adult learners, which I enjoyed doing so much that it inspired me to get a TEFL qualification so I can someday teach English myself!

Point being, there is a lot to discuss and share in my blog-post-turned-book and I think looking back, it does make more sense to write it as a book so I can make it more engaging and more fulfilling to write.

And so far, it’s off to a good start.

So let’s see how well it fares over the next upcoming few weeks.

A view of the Andes Mountains from Machu Picchu. The altitude was pretty high so it was challenging not to get too light-headed!