"It is not down on any map; true places never are." (Herman Melville) (Entry 23, Day 9)

Sunday, 2 June, 2013; our tent, the campsite; 8:16 PM

This is weird - I'm rarely ready for bed this early.  The thing is, it was full dark (stargazing-worthy) by 6:00, so that makes it easy to throw off my schedule (Pat would freak out more here - there's so much starlight you can see the cloud cover).

By the way, this is LUXURY CAMPING.  The porters carry everything that a backpacker would, except we're the ones traveling.  They cook, set up tents, the whole shebang.  AND THE FOOD IS GREAT.

The other great things about the meals is the conversations.  I had to tell my mom to eat her vegetables, and later it came up when Miguel was working through the briefing for tomorrow at the end of the meal (the meal in question: dinner).

Miguel: you know where my tent is, right?  So if you have any problems, or need to have a late-night talk, let me know.
Mom: I have a problem!  My daughter is telling me to eat my veggies!

Later on in the conversation (not too much later), Miguel said, jokingly, that he would teach me the meaning of life.  I'm considering saying to him in the morning something along the lines of "thanks for the talk last night.  It was great."

I have a feeling there are going to be a few running jokes stemming from tonight's conversation.  There are a few already from Cusco, when we were hanging out with Kim and Ellen.  Kim mentioned, in Cusco, that he hadn't realized this was a 'girlfriend' sort of trip (this was before we met up with Maggie and Mark, the two others on our trip that we hadn't met yet).  Ever since then, we've joked about how he's such a good girlfriend.

The other Cusco jokes is what color is good for you - i.e. what color looks good on you.  It stemmed from hanging out in an Alpaca knitwear shop, shortly after Kimbob's girlfriend comment, when we were holding up various garments to see how they'd look.  Kimbob was, jokingly, the most vocal about it.

You know, the conversations make up for the dragging pace, somewhat.  I guess that's the hazard of being the youngest.

Also, there's a donkey across the valley (it's a low valley that amplifies sound well) that has been braying all afternoon as if it's been in pain or it's been dying or something.

For some reason, I initially thought a cow was dying.  I don't know why.  It's been a while since I heard a donkey, I guess.


A/N: I never made the comment to Miguel.
Also, Kim's nickname is Kimbob.