I arrived at the tourist's agency with the rest of the group on the Amazon River trip at about 8:00 A.M. and found out that our plane to Lima wouldn't be ready until about six that evening so we were free to do what we wanted to. One of the young men named Jose at the agency took a fancy to me and since the agency was going to close down until the late afternoon, asked if he could take me on a private tour of Iquitos. I of course said "Yes!"

Off we went to tour the city, first the main square, then the river front, then he asked if I would like to have lunch at his house with his mother. We had lunch and I found out his brother was a travel agent in Lima and Jose wanted to go to Lima within the year to study and perhaps go to Spain to work in the travel business.

We then went back to the agency and everyone looked at me like, sure you got a personnal tour and we didn't. We finally boarded the bus to take us to the airport and as we walked up the stairs and into the plane, my 'friend' did the following:

• rushed up and grabbed me,
• gave me a kiss,
• gave me his address and
• put a silver ring on my finger!

Everyone just about had a heart attack! Several women said to the others:

"That beats everything, Chuck meets someone in the morning, tours the city, has lunch with the mother and gets engaged on the steps of the airplane all within ten hours!"

But this story ends like the movie 'Casablanca' for as soon as I got back to San Francisco I got on with my life after my South American trip in order to start looking for my next adventure in the world of travels.

Charles Walter Buntjer San Francisco California

Created on: 1994       Updated on: 2015.03.25