Day 670: Follow

Oh, what days this country is giving me. Oh, what days. 

A day or two ago, the day Venus threw in her backwards towel, in fact, I got out of town for a change. I made a plan to go to Urubamba and take a tourist taxi to Maras y Moray and Salineras - archeological sites and salt pans respectively. Impressive. Moray (I think) is round. It looks exciting. Behind the rush was the fact that I had a ticket for all sorts of sites. It covers 17 and lasts ten days. I'd done a handful, plus Pisaq ruins, where they didn't check the ticket, and I felt the need to see sights. 

I was going to get a collectivo - a bus, basically - to Urubamba and seek out a taxi and some tourists to share it with from there. Luckily, though, I spoke to my sweet soul sister and beloved friend Kath Jones on the phone just before. We gave each other mantras. Mine, I'll share, given to me by her. It was 'follow, follow, follow, follow'. So I did. Thank you, Kath Jones. You made this:

A taxi stopped, as they do, and offered me a ride. Oh, what days this I said no, but as I stood there, the owner of the hostel I'd just booked into grabbed it and climbed in. He was going part of the way, and with him and his son in the taxi, the fare to Urubamba was totally doable, so in I got. They got out at Calca and I climbed in the front. While chatting, I found out he was off to Ollantaytambo, a very picturesque little place. He lives there. Follow, follow, follow, follow. I stayed on in and went there instead. A taximan called Fernando approached me and chatted for ages. His taxi price for me alone to go to M&M was way too high, so I thought I'd maybe find some others. I failed delightfully, and headed to the ruins in that town. They were ACE. I liked them better than all the others that I've seen so far (I'm saving Machu Picchu for the right 'date' to go with - I don't want to go alone unless I'm bigly in the mood).

Once in, I found my way to the top, where there was a door. I stepped through it. It was all a bit Mr Benn. On the other side was a mountain path. I took it. It led me up and up and up. I passed a couple. Further up, I bumped into a fabulous young Chilean man called Nahual - translator, writer, lovely thing - who told me about a place in Pisaq I could stay and his work and life and loves a little bit. Then up and off I went. There was an extra bit of ruin at the 'top', but I could see more mountain, so I carried on. Paths were questionable, as was safety, to some extent. I enjoyed it very much. I met bugs and many cactus plants. I carried on till I was on the top of something again and then I stopped. 

The views were beyond my dreamiest mountain imagingings. The light was crisp and the sun unforgiving hot. I scrabbled down, finished the ruins (very nice), made off into the artesanal market (significant feather tools abounded) and then cocked around the pretty town eating theoretically unwise things from stands in the street until it was time to make my way home. I am all humbled with the flow of it. It rocked. 

Since then, my time has been full of friends and nice experiences. Thank to Fabian (the nice looking boy on the Pisaq rocks), I was alerted to the presence of a clown in this little place. Said clown turns out to have moved in with my friend Ash, from Pucallpa, and to be a druid too. I have been a happy parasite at their place for a few nights. The first was full of sweet potato mash and garlicky omelette, healings, nurture and hearthy fires; the second rich with ginger-soy broccoli treats laid on by Ash. Both evenings were full of lovely conversation and playful general joy. 

Today, Ash went on an adventure and the clever clown and I (his name is Ian and I like him very much) planned to play.  We planned more than played, but had a lovely time, ate street food sitting in the market with the trader women from the mountain villages nearby and hatched plots of games and workshops and all kinds of magical things to do. He bought balloons, the fingery ones, to make some hats from. He went to a school and I visited potential new places to live. The likely trump is a community with cats, guitars, children, flowers, an essential oils laboratory and an organic farm nearby. Eeep!

Later, I did a yoga class at Nidra Wasi, a retreat where I shall do a try-out tomorrow to be on their books as a massage therapist. The yoga was lovely. It's been FAR too long since I did a class. I was about to leave and check out a third home option, but the guests there, all about to eat, enticed me to stay and order something. They said the food was great. I had met one of them before, but not the rest. I stayed. The food was beautiful in every way - brightly coloured, beautifully combined, tasty, healthy and all organic-fresh. I had my own and the leftovers of one person who'd ordered three dinners by mistake and was supposed to be fasting. I went to pay, and one of these strangers who'd encouraged me to stay said her husband had sorted out my bill - they'd put it on the tab. Just so. 

How sweet, how generous. What gifts! Not just the dinner(s), but the eagerness to have me stay, the ease, the heartfelt conversations and the laughter. Of course the dinner(s) too. And to top it all, I caved and agreed to get a taxi when my walking plans were putting fear into people, but the owner, who was just about to go to bed, insisted on giving me a lift instead. What? How did I get to be this lucky and this blessed? Such easy giving and such happy, honoured receiving. How can I not be wallowing in the riches of these days? I am.