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The next couple of months saw me experience a variety of health problems I'd never experienced before.  Just four days after my return from South America, my legs burst out with literally hundreds of itchy bumps; these persisted for a painfully long couple weeks.  As soon as those cleared up, my ears, hands, and elbows erupted in tremendously itchy rashes; again, these took quite some time to fade.  On September 21st -- one month to the day after I came back -- I experienced a violent bout of fever that was preceded and followed by no explanatory symptoms.  It's been an odd spate of minor health issues that could very well be coincidental, but many have remained convinced that Peru is the link between all of them -- and, in my view, justifiably so.

Looking back, I am struck by the breadth and depth of my experiences in Peru.  I went from someone who'd hardly gone camping to trekking thirty miles over five days, at heights reaching nearly three miles above sea level.  I found myself in the middle of a true citywide fiesta, as Arequipa celebrated its 566th anniversary -- even while I spent much of the time stricken by foodborne illness.  In Lima, I visited a South American Chinatown, ate Peruvian dim sum, and walked in and among the remains of 70,000 in the catacombs of San Francisco.  Finally, the Amazon rainforest brought me face-to-face with creatures I'd heretofore only heard about -- and some I'd never even imagined. 

All told, then, Peru played host to a series of experiences as life-changing as any.  The diversity of these experiences find common ground in a familiar theme: crippling inequality, and the erosions that accompany that inequality.  From our first day in Cusco, we encountered beggars pleading for mere soles.  On the Machu Picchu hike, Pio explained that the average Peruvian makes little more than US$133 a month -- and the Salkantay trail itself has grown in popularity due to the increasing tourist-induced deterioration of the Inca Trail, leaving the Peruvian government scrambling to implement appropriate regulations.  In Iquitos, Cesar spoke of (and himself reflected) the struggles of the commoner to make a living, often against stifling odds; its surroundings, the Amazon river and rainforest, rank among the world's most infamous examples of the damage that can be caused by human exploitation and environmental apathy.  Ultimately, as virtually any visit to a developing country will suggest, my trip to Peru gave me a new set of vantage points on the struggles that emerge from systematically entrenched equality.

I'm writing this with quite a bit of hindsight.  It's been nearly four months since I returned from Peru; in the interim, I have witnessed the devastation in New Orleans, and I will soon embark on my final trip of 2006 -- this time to China.  However, through all the stories I've accrued and sights I've seen, South America will occupy a special place in the pantheon.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about it, and I hope you'll get a chance -- if you haven't already -- to see it yourself soon.

Map of Peru