The Team

After an unexpected delay going through customs in LA, the Australian girls on the team finally arrived this morning and I met them at breakfast. So young! It made me miss my backpacking days with my sister. I would guess them to be between 25-30 years old. I heard both of them say that they are lawyers and they have several weeks vacation time from work. They are very cute girls, sweet and smiley like most Australians I've ever met, I think they will be good to hang out with on this trip, but they'll probably be very speedy. They mentioned having rock climbing experience, too. After Cotopaxi, they plan to climb higher, on to Chimborazo, followed by several days relaxation and diving in the Galapagos Islands.
Sitting at their breakfast table was a guy names James, an ophthamologist from Texas, who seems roughly my age, maybe younger.  He is married with three children and also hosting an exchange student this year from ?Germany? James seems very social and also speaks Spanish which I suspect will be useful. A friend was supposed to go with him on the trip but ended up backing out for personal reasons.
Jim and Reid make up the remainder of the team.  They are friends from Washington, DC. Reid works for the Senate and has lots of climbing experience. Jim is a consultant for MTV relating to finance. He has no climbing experience.. Apparently Reid convinced Jim to come along on this climb telling him it'd be lots of fun.  Jim doesn't seem so sure Reid was telling the truth. Reid seems reserved and I heard him mention he wants to "go fast" up the mountain.  This makes me nervous because I know I am not fast and don't want to disappoint anyone. Jim runs marathons and triathlons so I imagine he is a speedy type A as well.
Today was the day I most missed having a friend on the trip as everyone paired up. I'm a big girl and can handle it, but still, in my mind it was glaringly obvious, especially as James talked with Ossy and I was the odd one out. Still I was glad to see everyone as it'd been too quiet at Rumiloma for the last few days.
After the city tour, we had dinner together at the hotel in the private dining room. We went around the table and talked about ourselves, previous trips we had done, etc. If you know me, you know I haaaaaate doing this in any fashion.  I hate all-eyes-on-me. And of course I was the last in order the way we went around the table, and ended up hearing a lot of cool and unique stories from all of them with a teency bit of humblebragging mixed in. The general take-aways were that everyone has waaaaaaay more disposable income than me (understatement of the year) and has traveled waaaaaaaay more extensively than me. Gulp. Besides James however, the rest of the team had either no children/grown children and no spouses. I acknowledge I'm in a completely different stage of life than they are, but still, it might have been the first time in my life that I felt out of place. Anyway, I own my life and I love what I've made of it, but I definitely felt awkward. Moving on....