First week in Peru
Well, I’ve been in Peru just over a week now and so far everything has gone as well as I could ever have expected! I apologise for the lack of updates for the few people who are following this blog.
So what have I been up to so far?
Well, after arriving in Cusco last Tuesday I found my way to Casa de la Gringa, a really nice little travellers hostel. I spent 6 nights there in total and really enjoyed my stay there.
My first few days were spent mostly exploring Cusco and getting used to the high altitude (over 11,000ft!!) . I suffered mild altitude sickness for the first 48 hours which resulted in me feeling a little light headed and some very mild flu-like symptoms. Or perhaps I caught swine-flu on the way!? Either way, I got over it in a few days.
Cusco is a wonderful city to explore. It’s a huge labyrinth of small cobbled-stoned streets, alley-ways and squares, with hundreds of little stores that sell some of the most incredible Peruvian art and clothing. I’m sure the novelty will wear off after awhile, but even after a week here I still love to walk around browsing the stores and making new discoveries.
There’s also a huge amount of restaurants and cafes, offering a wide variety of food, most of which are very reasonably priced - at least to someone with an average western sized income. You can eat well for about £5 and eat like a king for about £20.
A street in the San Blas area of Cusco
A street in Cusco
Last Thursday I visited the main market for the first time. In fact there are two main markets. One is predominantly for food and the other for electrical, clothing and household goods. Fruit and veg is amazingly cheap and you can probably buy almost all the fruit and veg you can eat in a week for about £5 (and that assumes that, like me, you eat quite a lot of fruit and veg!).
Entrance to Cusco's main market
On friday night I participated in my first Ayahuasca ceremony here in Peru. The friday ceremony was unplanned and fairly spur of the moment and I have to be honest definitely wasn’t one of the best ceremonies I’ve experienced. I’ll write a lot more about ayahuasca in future posts.
The friday ceremony took place in Lesley’s house who is the owner of the hostel I was staying in. About 15 people took part in the ceremony and it was conducted by a young female shaman from the sacred valley.
Leyley's house
A couple of days previous I had made plans to go to Pisac, a small town in the sacred valley to do an ayahuasca ceremony with Javier at a small healing resort called Paz Y Luz (Peace & Light). I hardly slept on friday night after the ceremony and almost decided not to go to Pisac, but an intuition told me I should go. So after we walked back down to Cusco from Leyley’s house I got on the bus to Pisac because I knew Javier wanted me there by around midday.
Walking back down to Cusco
View over Cusco
The bus was an interesting experience. It was just leaving the bus station when I got there but I flagged it down and got on board just in the nick of time. However the small bus was completely full with even two passengers in the front passenger seat. I was going to try and stand (not easy on these kinds of roads) but the bus driver insisted I sat on this small makeshift seat right in the middle between him and the two front passengers. It wasn’t the comfiest seat in the world but way better than trying to stand and I got a fantastic view of the journey ahead.
The bus journey was about 45 minutes. The first half is mostly uphill as the bus ascends up the mountainous terrain, and then the second half is all downhill as the road descends into the sacred valley towards Pisac.
View from the front of the bus to Pisac
Upon arriving at Pisac I went straight to Paz y Luz where I met and spoke to Javier for awhile. Then I booked myself into a room and got myself some much needed sleep before we met for the ceremony at 5.30pm.
The ceremony with Javier was awesome. He’s created a really safe and sacred space in his ceremony room at the back of his house. I don’t want to write too much about my experience but I felt tremendous love and energy for the full length of the ceremony. As stated above I will write more about ayahuasca in future posts because it’s played an important role in my spiritual journey so far.
View from the sacred valley
On the Sunday morning I caught the bus back to Cusco and got some much needed rest and begin the process of integrating what I had learnt the previous two nights.
On the Sunday evening I went to see a guy who had a spare room in a house he managed. The room was perfect and I moved in the following morning. It’s costing me 600 soles a month (about £135) and as I write this I’ve spent two nights there. It feels like one of the most perfect houses I could have found. In fact I didn’t really find it - it found me - just like I knew it would. More information and pictures coming soon.
Anyway, that’s my summary of my first week so far. It’s been a wonderful week and I’m feeling really high on life right now. If every other week is as good as this then I’m going to have an amazing experience here.
