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Published: February 9th 2013
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I had scheduled a homestay with the Awamaki organization in Ollantayambo before the trip. I went to their office and met with their helpful staff who introduced us to our homestay mother Tina. Awamaki is similar to Sacred Hearts in mission, but they also provide local weaving classes and homestays where all the money goes to the local families, thus creating a meaningful cultural bridge and also a source of income. I am ceaselessly inspired by all the people we have met who have given up their comfortable lives with all the modern conveniences for a life of charity and hard work in Peru.
After huge hugs and kisses welcoming us, Tina walked us to her home, which was only a few blocks from the center of the city. She did not speak a single word of English, but we managed to communicate through our horrendous Spanish, smiles, and hand gestures. The home was a humble traditional courtyard style mud, rock and concrete home, with cages full of chickens and guinea pigs, two dogs and a kitten. The family was Tina and her husband, her three adult sons, daughter in law, and two grandchildren. I was surprised when we were
given our own room, and a beautiful comfortable one at that, but felt somewhat guilty wondering which family members we displaced by staying there. Everyone was incredibly friendly and seemed genuinely thrilled at our presence there, especially Ismael, a precocious 3 year old boy. Tina showed me her kitchen, which was a stone, dark medieval looking room with a wood burning hearth. She pulled out a few pieces of cabbage and threw them on the floor. Out from the dark corners came scurrying about a dozen guinea pigs of all varying ages, squeaking and scurrying like cockroaches. It was disturbing to say the least to see dinner literally living in the home almost as pets, but understandable as they are extremely prolific and grow quickly as a source of food. I was happy to learn they usually only eat them on holidays or very special occasions, so I would not be hearing any screams of guinea pigs coming from the kitchen that evening, and we made sure she understood we were not to be considered a special occasion.
We took off on a local hike on the Incan Trail, across the river and high into the stunning Andes. We
admired the incredibly high and steep trail we could see carved into the mountainside the previous day, and found out it lead to the ancient quarry used by the Incans for all the local ruins. We bought some local fruit, an avocado and bread from the farmers market for lunch and hit the trail. We passed several ruins along the way and could see where there had been terraces carved into the mountainsides that were now grown in. We reached the quarry and found several small ceremonial huts in the area that must have been used to provide offerings to their gods. We found out later a nearby cave housed Incan skeletal remains.
We got back at Tina’s house, and played with Ismael until dinner. Happily dinner did not consist of guinea pig but was a delicious zucchini soup with rice and vegetables.
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Steffanie
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Quarry!
You found the quarry! More pictures of that please! The day we set out to find it the fog was terrible and we got lost instead.