Its Sunday in Trujillo and a day of rest alter 1 month of absolute epic journey. I feel like I really have seen more that my 19 year old eyes are able to contain. I have met 1 million interesting people who struggle down every walk of life, I have seen the worlds biggests birds swooping over the worlds second biggest canyon, boarded down the worlds highest dunes, swam in the clear blue pacific as the sun goes down and watched sea lions giving their cubs the first tender nudge towards the sea. Can I ever be impressed again?

While traveling has given me some amazing experiences, it has also had its inevitable lows. Dealing with the Peruvian police in a dodgy barrio of Lima when my friends phone got stolen took quite some strength and stoicism. I can’t claim to have enjoyed a raging altitude fever in La Paz with the screams of ice-cream sellers splintering my delicate brain hour after hour. Do I look like I want an ice-cream?? Having arrived at last in Trujillo, where tomorrow I will begin my new project working in a school, I have had my first hot shower for weeks and even treated myself to a jar of peanut butter. Now that is living.

But the combination of the two – highs and lows - has been such an incredible ride. If ever you are deliberating over whether to take a gap year, deliberate no more. The moments when you want to cry will change you just as much as those you laugh about for days, and you will learn to be the person you want to be and not accept the putty mould that people around you teased you into in Wiltshire. Above all, you will learn to be ever curious: to always try that funny yellow thing they sell everywhere, to always walk down that winding little street that people always seem to disappear down, to seek out the weird and the wonderful – be it in the wild mountains of the altiplano, or the billowing fields of good old Wilts. Here in Trujillo, I am gearing myself up for a whole new set of soaring thrills and crashing lows. But where I might have been anxious before, even reluctant, I feel only excitement and anticipation. Role on Monday morning! (And its not often you will her me say that!)