A little more of Peru

So, where was I? That's right, I was in Peru making friends with the clouds in Machu Picchu. So let me continue...

After we visited the real life postcard and sat in the unreal setting, we made our way down to the city of Cuzco to spend a few days exploring that area. We took the train through beautiful mountain landscapes in a railway car filled with a huge group on vacation from Japan. They spoke no English or Spanish, and we certainly didn't speak any Japanese, but somehow we all became friends within the first thirty minutes.

We arrived in Cuzco late (meaning 9:30 to me...) and settled in the hotel. I got up early to explore on foot via a morning run, and I couldn't believe how beautiful the small city was. The architecture was screaming with history and even the color of the sky at sunrise seemed just right for this place. The next few days were spent roaming more Inka sites around Cuzco. There were so many places in which I thought to myself "How can the earth be this beautiful? How can something like this exist?" By this point in the trip, I was really learning to enjoy the meditation that we did each day, and I really used my surroundings to get into it. At each Inka site I noticed that the use of water was very important to the ancient culture, and there would always be sources of water incorporated into each space. Amazing fountains that seemed to come from no where would offer a peaceful background noise as trees seemed to make their offering to the land by swaying back and forth whenever the wind desired. I walked barefoot around many of the sites trying to allow my body to soak up what it could from the earth. Each day in Cuzco consisted of roaming an Inka site, being amazed at the beauty of nature and coming back to the city to roam the historical streets and have coffee somewhere.

From Cuzco, we took a 9 hour bus ride to an even smaller city named Puno. The bus ride was beautiful, and we stopped on the way to see ruins from Pre-Inka cultures and beautiful churches. We slept, meditated, talked and conversed with each other and with strangers. It was a much needed rest day after many days of such mental, emotional and physical changes and adventures. As we pulled into Puno the one site we were all set on was the grandeur of Lake Titicaca. Even from afar we could see that it was such an immense body of water and it seemed to appear from no where. Everyone had their faces up to the windows on the left side of the bus and digital cameras were clicking away.

After settling into our hotel in Puno, we rested for the night and prepared for the next days adventures. I got up early and ran down to the water to jog alongside the sunrise, but I had to stop many times to stare. In addition to the beauty taking my breath away, I realized that the higher up you are in altitude the harder it is to breathe. I was up at 5:00am due to the inability to sleep (again with the breathing thing) and I watched the sunrise over the lake as I stared without being able to form a thought it my head. It was just so real.

Our Shaman Amaru took us to a local market that morning to pick up the necessities for a picnic by the water. We spoke with the vendors and they provided us with delicious foods and snacks for our journey. We drove for an hour out to a random rock formation in the middle of nowhere and climbed over pathways and rocks stopping to talk to the locals on the way. We were in the middle of a field of huge, tall, thin, flat rocks that seemed to spurt from the ground. I was amazed that rocks could be formed like this in any element of weather. They were incredible. We were apparently in some pre-Inka gateway to the Pachamama god. We chanted and hummed our way into a meditation of sorts before roaming the area in some silence. I realized that I was silent during a lot of our days due to my desire to take in each molecule of beauty, and also due to my lack of words to express how beautiful it really was. After breathing deeply and getting drunk off the landscape, we got in the van and made our way to the waters edge to have a picnic, do some tai chi and breathe some more.

We drove through a little town that was so remote and almost desolate (but also very alive), and I couldn't believe that they were places like this that existed. Women sat against their mud houses to take a break from herding sheep or washing clothes in a water basin while kids ran around letting the earth be their playground. It was so refreshing to see.

We sat on the waters edge cutting mangos, pears, peaches, bananas and homemade bread for our picnic. We fed the dogs that roamed the area and watched women carry a wheelbarrow down to the water to wash clothes. We watched ox (I think) wash in the water and follow their owners back to their land. We filled our bellies with such ripe fruits before we walked along the shore. I stuck my hand in the water and was surprised at how warm it was considering the breeze that was keeping us so chilly. We each laid out on a rock like stuffed seals and took some sun into our bones to warm us up. It was simply an ideal afternoon. On our way out, we left fruits with the locals and waved goodbye to the sheep...The rest of the afternoon was so relaxing as we just headed back into town to bum around. Perfection.

Speaking of bumming around, I think it's about time for me to do some of that before I update anymore about Peru. There is little left (yet so much left out), however it IS a Sunday morning and the parks are calling my name. I will write soon about the rest of my trip to Peru and whats been going on in Santiago.

Keep the hugs flowing.
I'll send them back.
xoxo