Peru+Brazil Trip: Day 1: Day in Ollanta

After arriving at the hostel at 9am, as I expected the room wasn't ready. So I just freshened up and brushed my teeth in the bano (washroom in spanish), then bummed around their 'lobby' a bit.. getting my 2nd wind, I then walked around town.. going on random walks that i swear had me in someone's backyard and farms... lol.. didn't really see anything cool though (I tried to go to this ruin, but it was a fail as after walking around a stadium and climbing over a wall, nothing was there. I did though had a standoff with a cow.. and he won, since I ended up taking a detour to another backyard to avoid getting too close tp it..

For lunch...
orange ginger papaya mix - not too tasty.. pretty weird
smoked trout spaghetti.. not bad... the smokiness definitely made it unique.

At 1pm, I begin my first official excursion in Peru - a tour organized by the NGO Awamaki - rated pretty highly on tripadvisor.

This was the pachanan tour. A tour that'd take me to a local Queschan village, where I just get to get a sense of how they live. Also as part of this, I was 'taught' (Handheld) how to weave a bracelet. These kids are pretty smart - supposedly they start weaving at age 13, and their patterns are pretty complex (unlike mine). I was also amazed yet again at how simple they live.. electricity costs $1.5 a mth.. pretty simple menu for meals.. pure chillax life, simple housing... yet the kids are all smiles n happy. Makes u wonder why we are chasing so hard in what we call careers and what not.. also the organizer turned out to be from s.town..and will probably come back to ollanta once she graduates..

Makes me think - what is my purpose of life? My happiness - the more I grow older, the more I think, the more I realize I'm not investing my time to obtain it ... .. .but instead chasing after things that I don't even know why I am, instead of giving my all and risking it all for the life that nothing I'm chasing for right now can help me with.

anyhow..
Also tried these worm potatoes.. pretty yummy tho.. peru apparently famous for potatoes.

For dinner, I had guinea pig for 50 sols.. think i made the kid run to get it from the square since I didn't want to wait 30 minutes.. and also got them to lower the price by 10sols (originally the price was 60 sols for the guinea pig)...

Also had a pisco sour for 5 sols.. dam good drink..

A bit of drama at bill time, when they decided to charge me 15 sols for a drink (As they forgot that I had negotiated happy hour pricing), but did fix that and off I went..

Back at the hostel, no hot water, but being pretty tired, decided to take an ice cold shower instead. The water was soo cold, made my heart skip an extra beat each time I went under it lol. But soldier mson washed quickly and was relatively clean.. mission accomplished!

Ended up sleeping at 9.45... so ends the first day at Ollanta