Day 8 – Manaus to Miami

The day was spent mostly at the airport and we left Manaus around 1 p.m. and got to Miami at about 6. On the plane ride, we flew over the northern part of South America, which I snapped a picture of. Eventually we flew over Cuba and I got a chance to look down to there too. We checked into the airport hotel once more, and Burger King never sounded so good. It was great to hear English from the customs agent, as Moreno and Prakash spoke it, but apart from that we didn’t run into one native English speaking person (as a first language) on the whole trip. It was far removed from everywhere else I’ve been, where at least you can converse with others, but it was only my father and I, and our guides at times. Even the heat in Miami was tolerable compared to our previous location. Thankfully we had rooms to ourselves (more for his sake than mine), and it had a nice king sized bed and I watched “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and ate my greasy American food. It rocked.

Day 9 – Miami to Denver

The next morning was early as we checked into United at 5 a.m., and we were in Chicago’s airport several hours later. We arrived in Denver around 11:30 a.m. and it felt great to be home, knowing that the day before I had the opportunity to be in a place that few people get the chance to visit. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity, and it’s surreal to think that I was down there so recently.

You can access the videos I've assembled for Peru and Bolivia (via YouTube) at the following link:


http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1E045A63D8ACEC1B


If it doesn't work, as always - let me know.


Brazil posts (from 9/06) to follow in the next couple of days.

A couple of sidenotes:


-The people of Peru seemed (no matter how poor) to have a good quality of life. In most cases they had jobs (tending to land or whatnot), a family life and seemed pretty happy overall. I must say that even in the most impoverished areas and outskirts of cities, the people there work hard and strive to have a good life (as I imagine nearly anyone does)


-I love traveling to various places but have recently come to understand that there is so much to see in the United States that I have yet to even think about laying eyes on. Therefore it is a personal goal to see more of our homeland in the coming years – just to appreciate just how diverse our country is. I think traveling to foreign places is almost always enjoyable, but it’s difficult to truly appreciate them if you don’t know what home offers. It’s all relative, eventually.


-Bolivia is a country with interests here and there, but overall neither one of us was too impressed with it, nor would we recommend going there (unless just to say that one has “been” there).

Day 15: October 12, 2007


Fin


We flew into Dallas and arrived there around 10:00am, had about an hour layover before heading to Denver, which was only about 90 minutes away. Once we landed in Denver it was a matter of picking up our luggage and meeting our ride. I was tempted to drive the way they do down there, but opted not to (as it might result in jail time for yours truly). So that was it – our adventure had come to an end, but with plenty of memories and souvenirs to last a lifetime.