Marci Soifer

7 weeks of traveling have ended, and I am once again at the small, blue internet cafe in my Lima neighborhood of Surco. Although the house is filled with strangers now and my community has moved on, it is good to be here. The faces, smells, and sights of Peru...even Lima, which is rather distinct from the rest of the country...are so different than the rest of South America, from my experience. And, there is something about being here...it feels comfortable.

When I walked into the house, and I met some of the new volunteers, one jumped up. She said, oh, you are Marci...I work at Deporte y Vida, and the kids are always asking me if I know you or if we can do things like what you did, like make playdough. I smiled, and nodded. At camp, we call that a benchmark.

Today, I wandered through my neighborhood, made one last stop at the local artesan market, and caught up on e-mails. In about 4 hours, I will head back to the Lima airport for the last time. I have been there many, many times in the last 5 months, and everytime, I cannot help but think of the first visit...the first time I sat in that airport and it happened to for an entire night, en route to Ayacucho. I still had a smell on my clothes from the detergent used in my mothers house, I could not get a Spanish word out, and I wondered what I was doing here. And now, everything has come full circle.

This is the final blog entry. I can hardly believe it, actually. It even feels a bit more strange to end this record than to be going home. I honestly have loved every minute of this adventure, but feel ready to retire my backpack for a while. However, the ending of the blog feels very final. This is the end of my streaming words, and the end of my need to remember and share details. This is the end of my logging on to check and respond to comments, and the end of taking notes on the back on napkins for the sake of entries. This is the end of my knowledge that you, the person who seems to follow my adventure, is with me. I will, of course, write forever in other capacities...perhaps I will blog again someday...in another stint of traveling. But, as for right now, this is the end. Thank you for reading.

I had a pattern of ending each blog entry with words that looked forward to the next entry, or part of the trip. Today, I have no more words pointing to the next section of my South American adventure. Instead, I will quote the old childrens book (that I am sure you have read), Madeline. This book ends simply, and without a complicated goodbye...

That is all. There isnt anymore.