Some excerpts of emails sent home to loved ones from teens on their gap year.

My fav is this one: “In Quito, I went on a crazy party bus which was quite an experience. Everyone dances on the roof with a band, but the bus is too tall and you have to duck for bridges and cables. Me, being too chilled out, forgot to do this. I have since been to a witch doctor, which was scary. She was a complete nutter and made me strip so she could beat me with flowers, and then spat all over my torso. (I was a little freaked out by how much she knew of my fetishes.) Penultimately I visited the equator, which was just a line.”

http://travel.guardian.co.uk/gapyears/story/0,,1940601,00.html