Dear Abby – I am becoming an Adventure Tourism Snob. Please help.

Over this last month, I have been traveling by motorbike along the Andes with a group of friends; starting in Cartagena, Colombia, passing through Ecuador, and now in Cusco, Peru. We have stayed in condos, hotels, hostels, and camped on farms, by lakes, and under the tailings of a gold mine. Our beds have cost everything from $3 to hundreds per night. One night we stayed at a beach compound that would have made a down market refugee camp. Our food has varied from haute cuisine to simple local grills to an excellent chicken soup with the feet floating in it.

We have ridden on every kind of road from first class motorways to dodgy dangerous hillclimbs to deep water and mud to dirt roads that felt like they were made of pebbles mixed with sand like talcum. 

We have been to towns and villages that have rarely, if ever, seen strangers passing through and we have been greeted and welcomed with complete warmth and generosity everywhere we have wandered.

Today, though, I am in an upscale hotel in Cusco for a couple of days to regroup and get cleaned up and refreshed for the rigours to come in Bolivia and the Altiplano and the Atacama. The hotel is filled with earnest westerners with the right gear and the right cameras about to enjoy the Valley of the Incas and Machu Picchu. The hotel even offers an option to add oxygen to the air in your room in addition to guide and spa services.

And this is the first time in a month that I have felt like a tourist.

A lady this morning at the truly world-class breakfast buffet was complaining that she could’t find her favorite cheese and that the toaster wasn’t as quick as the one at home. I felt like grabbing her and saying “Ferfucksake woman, I ate in a restaurant last week that had a fly paper hanging over the table. And Señor Alvarez put us up in his guest room for $3. Get over it and stop bothering these people!”

I feel angry and alien. Do I need help?