How many bananas can a camel deliver without eating them all? This is a fun puzzle I was assigned on the first day of highschool (over a decade ago).  I just dug it up randomly from under my bed and thought I'd share it with the SE community. At the time, I found a better solution than even the Puzzle book had, and nobody was able to come up with a better answer... 

A farmer has 3000 bananas that will be sold at a supermarket located 1000 kilometers away.  To get them there, he has a camel that is strong enough to carry 1000 bananas at a time, but will eat 1 banana for each kilometer it walks.  Will the camel successfully deliver any bananas to the supermarket?  If yes, how many, and how?

Have fun! :D  (I will reveal my personal 9th grader solution if no-one finds it)  

Ok - it is an answer, that I think is optimal. When I first made this comment, I was unsure. But 533 seems to be the answer.
First go 200 kilometers, drop off 600, and turn around. Repeat. So now we have 2000 bananas, 200 kilometers away from where we began.
Now travel 333 and a third of a kilometer, drop off 333 and a third, and return to the 'wait station' 200 kilometers away from where we began. There are 1000 bananas left, and so we go in one run to the end. We do, of course, pick up the 333 and a third bananas that we left (conveniently exactly 333 and a third kilometers away).
So we end with 1000 - 800 + 333 and a third, or 533 and a third bananas. And I think this is optimal.
