la serena, Chile - Some 3581 km as the crow flies from where I started my surf oydessy in Montanita, Ecuador I kicked back on an equally warm beach and dug my toes in the fine Chilean sand. It had been a long trip, I had seen a lot of coast line. It was hard to believe I had made it as far as I had, I´d seen so many places, met so many people, left so many things I had only just started.

It was those people and those places I remebered most, their voices, there smiles, the setting sun, the crashing waves, the endless desert dreamscapes. Sure there were the agnonzing long distance bus rides too.

Macchu Picchu had been a highlight. Hanging out on the garden terraces of the Inca people, once home to a dizzying array of medicinal plants used in the spiritual activities that went on there, I was utterly in awe that such a beautiful city could have once existed.

Changing currencies, cultures, and compass directions can make a traveller weary, and that I was, as I comed the beach front board walks of Iquique, and the palm tree lined streets of La Serna I could feel it in my soul. But nights like the one in Arica, refreshed things; camping beside the waves, I met a Chilean family that took me in as one of their own. This sort of thing can make a profound impression on a young man.

Peru had been a battle, with the hoards of gringos that pour through there annually I was just another one to make a buck off. Looking back though it was rough and rugged in a way that makes Chile look tame, complacient, and Western. I knew I had been desensitized when crossing the street in Chile while cars whizzed by; a driver honked from another lane and I let a flurry of curses flow from my lips, what was he thinking I thought to myself, he seemed concerned for my saftey. Obvisously, he had never had to cross streets on foot in Guaylaquil, Ecuador.

I think in the end I had a bit of summer for the first time in five years, had gotten a tan below my neck, and learned to surf a bit better. Overall, though, it was the subtle and sometimes not subtle diferences in Latino culture that I had come to appreciate most from my trip, not to mention the immensity of the contient itself.