Airfare: $560

Souvenirs: $100

Spending 10 days playing soccer in Peru with 16 of your Creighton teammates: Priceless.

That is the attitude of the Jays men’s soccer team as they prepare to head off on the South American trip on May 21.

“Foreign trips can be good or bad,” head coach Bob Warming said, “but this will be a great chance for our team to bond. We already have such a great chemistry with this group, and I think this trip will improve that.”

The team has taken one other foreign trip; well kind of. Warming says that four years ago, the team took $147 roundtrip flights to Buffalo, N.Y., rented a few 15-passenger vans and drove into Canada to play.

“This time is a little different,” admits Warming.

Warming speaks at soccer clinics and camps all over the world and while he was at one, a coach from Lima, Peru, asked him to come speak. When Warming said he’d love to but wished he could bring his team, the other coach took the idea and ran with it.

Due to Creighton’s budget and the economy, Warming did not want to ask the school to pay for any of the trip, thus the players are paying for airfare, but the Peruvian coach and his club will be covering every other cost of the trip.

“What a great opportunity for our players to spend $560 and play soccer for 10 days in Peru,” Warming said. “The people in Peru have been so helpful to us.”

The Jays will play four games on the 10-day trip, including some at the National Stadium (capacity: 45,574). They will recoup at the spectacular Club Regates, again at no cost.

“I look forward to playing international talent and traveling to a new country,” junior forward Jeff Thayer said. “It will be my first time out of the United States and I am looking forward to experiencing a new culture.”

In all, 17 players, three coaches and four parents are going on the trip. Warming says the small contingent in a packed stadium of hostile fans will give his team the ability to play well in similar environments come the NCAA Tournament in the fall.