I'm packing a few more things, taking trips down the long ha-ha of memory.

Once, there was a really big rain storm at one of the lodges in Peru. I was sure that I had never seen or experienced such a monsoon in the states. My 19-20 something self decided, lets go for a walk in the rain! My boyfriend at the time really didn't want to--it wasn't that special to him--but I insisted, and so we did. All the other guides (mostly Australians) looked at us as though we were nuts. And thats what it was...A FORCED WALK IN THE RAIN. Maybe it wasn't that terrible. *cringe* I guess that was my 2nd time in Peru. (I went 4 times, the last being in 1999, after I graduated).

"Are you a student of Biology/Ecology/Environmentalism?" the Australians would ask.
"No, English."
"But you speak English."
"I mean Literature."
"Oh."
(Their tones implying "Whats the point of that?")

On my 2nd trip to Peru, I read "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard for an English class at school. It was very strange to look up from the well manicured lawn on the book's cover and see what looked quite wild, tangled, unkempt, and full of gigantic flying insects. I didn't know very much Spanish yet. It was a lot more fun after I learned more Spanish. Although there was the time in 1999 when I went along as an interpreter with a guide who didn't speak any English, and he told me that we were lost in the jungle, and we were frantically trying to communicate back in forth in Spanish without alarming the turistas, and still get the group back to the lodge before sundown, as we had no tents or torches, but in the end it worked out alright.