[jopperm2]

This thread reminded me of a chapter in PJ O'Rourke's book All the Trouble in the World.

Originally Posted by PJ

I'd flown to Peru flor Florida. There's a corner of Miami INternational Airport devoted to off-brand Latin American airlines: Chacha Air, Trans Mato Grosso, Mavinas National, Aero Tierra del Fuego, and so forth. American "eco-tourists," seeking solitude in untrammeled wilderness and lonely communion with the natural world, jammed the ticket counters. There's a look about these sightseer. They haven't been out in the weather enough to get skin-cancerous, and they haven't been in an office or shop for fourteen hours a day either. Theris is the healthy glow of people without enough to do. They are in their thirties or fourties but sit on the airport floor cross-legged as though they were fifteen. They touch each other a lot and make prolonged eye contact, and their conversations are filled with little noises of affirmation. The men are not actually unshaven but look as though they are nerving themselves not to shave. The women wear their hair plain and their faces scrubbed and go undecorated except for large pieces of "native" jewelry--that is, jewelry from cultures where women spend as much time dolling themselves up as they can spare from baby-having and yam-field-tilling."

Ahead of me in line was an all-female tour group, Amazon-bound, as it were. They talked about being an all-female tour group. This, they told each other, was meaningful. Also meaningful were herbal medicines, spiritual healings, astral projection, auras, and other things not subject to empirical observation or experimental proof. Natural creatures showinf appreciation of nature by holding natural science in contempt--nature is mysterious.

That describes the group of people Moonbiter metioned before.. I'll post more about his actual trip next..