To top off my third weird and wonderful week in Cusco, Peru, I had a perfect ¨This is seriously surreal¨ experience.
I was feeling a little odd this morning, which I´m finding is becoming my normal state of being, amongst the gamut of other emotions I feel on a daily basis, but regardless I trotted off to the kindergarten where my ´tandem´ parter, Jony, is a Director. The tandem deal is that she learns English and I learn Spanish. Unfortunately there is a lot more English learning happening. I am becoming very good at it.
Anyway, Jony wasn´t there. However her husband was. Her ex-biologist, now kindy and karate teacher, husband. And this is where the weirdness begins. I had met him a few days ago however he had no recollection of me (making a big impression in Peru, I am). Anyway after he insisted that my name is Tanya (close enough, it happens in Australia too...) he proceeded to give me a full throttle awakening into the joys of Buddhism and how Buddha and Christ can change my life. He then informed me that Mt Salkantay is my ´Angel Mountain´ - handy hint as I happen to be trekking it tomorrow. And then he read my palm. And the overall verdict, you ask?
Apparently whilst I am intelligent now I am destined to become a lunatic. Yes, crazy.
Have I mentioned this was completely in Spanish? The word ´loco´was definitely understood though. Oh and there were little three year olds running around playing whilst I was being told my exciting future.
I guess I should be thankful as later as I was literally hanging out of the bus as it took off (yes, the stereotypical South American buses with a capacity for 15 people that have 30 faces pressed up against the windows fighting for air - one of those) I serenely thought to myself, ¨It´s cool. I´m not going to die...I haven´t had time to go crazy yet¨.
And now I am topping off the day by going to eat guinea pig tonight. Maybe the craziness has begun? It´s delicious I hear... I´ll get back to you on that one.
Aside from my personal shaman, there has also been other awesomely unexpected people trickle through my life since I last wrote. Considering most volunteers are run of the mill young-ish people either on a gap year or like me looking for an ´epiphany´ of sorts, where do I ´file´ people like Eileen the lady from New Zealand, born-circa 1938 travelling alone, volunteering and learning Spanish? Or Jake who at first startled me with his sort-of-nihilistic views on the world who at 21 is now actually quite intriguing to me?
I guess I don´t file them and that´s the whole point! I honestly hope I meet more of these people and have more of these ¨This is seriously surreal¨ experiences.
I am trekking to Machu Picchu tomorrow for five days (via ´my´ mountain, Salkantay) so I´ll ´see´ you when I get back!
Here´s to life...sane or crazy!
xx
