Following our epic six day river journey from Iquitos, we stayed in Pucallpa for one night to rest our hammock-sore backs in hotel beds. The next day, at the bus station, after Ewelina and Lukasz boarded our bus to Lima, I waited outside to make sure our big backpacks were properly stowed underneath. As I glanced around, I suddenly recognized a man near the ticket counter: a fellow traveler who had been in my tour group back in the Eco-lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon, four months prior. I remember he had said he was from Chile. Or was it Argentina? Anyway, I walked over, we shook hands, and I said hello to him and then he introduced me to his two companions. It was a welcoming surprise to see a familiar face in such a remote location. We couldn’t remember each other’s names, so he asked mine and I gave it. In the background I could hear the bus start it’s engine. I glanced with annoyance at the bus. The man began telling me about some of his adventures in the Amazon since we last saw each other. He had tried the Amazonian drink Ayahuasca, and — “AARON!! THE BUS IS LEAVING!!” Lukasz and Ewelina called from a bus window. I apologized, quickly said goodbye to the trio and rushed onto the bus. I didn’t even have a chance to ask the man’s name or maybe exchange emails so we could stay in touch. His two companions had intrigued me also. I tried to look back out the bus windows, to catch a glimpse of the trio I had hastily left behind. But they were gone. The bus pulled out of Pucallpa, 18 hours of mountains and desert between us and Lima.
aaron travels the world 