"Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen..." (John Keats) (Entry 35, day 15)

Saturday, June 8, 2013; 3:33 PM; plane to Panama

Right, back to recapping.  First - there's a little girl sitting a row back and across the aisle playing a loud-ish game for kids her age (match the shapes!  Identify the colors!  Cross out the odd one out!).  Second - plane meals (especially the salads) should only be consumed when hungry.  They rarely taste above average.

Anyway, back to the recap.

The people we regularly interacted with were really cool - both the guides and the other people in the group.  Obviously, I was the youngest by a lot in most of the scenarios - I think there was a porter on the trek, but I hardly spoke to any of the porters; the closest person in age to me that I actually interacted with was Miguel, who's twelve years older than me.  It was sort of interesting at times to be the only teenager, but sometimes it was sort of frustrating, because I wasn't over thirty and I haven't had a career and my choice of vocabulary might have been different if I was with people my own age.  Well, everything would have been different if I had been with people my own age - the interactions with the other people in the group were a big part of what made the trip interesting.  If I had been with people my own age, I feel like we would have done a lot of things differently - for one thing, most people in my group of college friends probably would have been miserable during most of the hikes, or would have been too busy talking loudly in the Amazon to pay attention to the potential wildlife (though it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they were loud enough to irk the wild boars).

Also, this is one of the first trips where Mom hasn't been a Super Scout Mom (always tense, keeping tabs on everyone, and being rather bossy but extremely organized).  That was interesting within itself - partly that Mom wasn't trying to keep a constant tab on me, but partly that there wasn't a Scout Mom type person there at all.  That was probably because I was the only person below 30, and I've been out of the house for almost a year, so both Mom and I had the chance to realize that if I wasn't in her sightline there was a fair chance that I was still within shouting distance of someone we know (which was frequently the case), who could help if I broke something.

My favorite place to stay was the eco lodge in the Amazon - it was a really nice hotel because it was so open and removed from everything (you had to take a two-hour boat ride and spend an hour on the bus just to get to the airport).  Also, the coffee they had there was really good (which helped when I had to wake up at 5:30.  I never had to do that in high school).  I didn't really have a least favorite residence - I could say that my least favorite was the tents, but camping is not the same as staying in hotels, and, for camping standards, the trek was really good.

Right, with little else to say by way of recap, I declare this the end of the Peru entries.  Will write again in August for Turkey.