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Third day of waking up with a ridiculous tooth ache I think I had a dream of yanking it out last night and feeling instant release, my concern is food getting under the skin and having an abscess around it.
I was not a happy bunny this morning scott snored all night, in surprised he doesn't have a bruise in his back from me kicking and punching him to stop snoring! I had about four hours sleep and my back was in agony sleeping on a rock hard bed. I can also still taste the bloody garlic repeating on me.
We went down for breakfast, mamma asked if my tooth was okay, I immediately said yes because the thought of having to put another piece of garlic in my mouth that had been left out on the table from last night was not sitting well in my stomach. She gave another glove to take with me in case I get pain again (yummy!) even though my mouth was still killing me!
Breakfast was runny porridge with apple and banana flavour in it, it was actually really nice! But of course it wouldn't be a Peruvian breakfast without carbohydrates - toasted bread rolls cut in half. But of course it had butter on it so I had to try and chew bread for the both of us, I gave up after two pieces. Scott wrapped two up in his napkin and put it in his hoody to make it look like we had eaten more than we actually had because we felt bad leaving the food.
After breakfast and some more painkillers for the both of us we grabbed our belongings and walked to the market - the women's weaving community project.
There are 60 women that work at the weaving project that G adventures produced in order to help the community in Ccaccaccollo. G adventures could see that tourists wanted to see the 'real traditional' areas of Peru and other countries whilst travelling so they have set up more than 50 projects in different countries around the world to help support the communities and improve their health and wellbeing. They could also see that other tour operators were setting up fake communities for tourists to see, this was not showing tourists the traditional areas of these countries and taking business away from the communities.
The women only work in 4 hours in the morning weaving their alpaca wool scarfs, jumpers, textiles, gloves and hats, etc. They go back to their homes in the afternoon and work at their homes cleaning and cooking or farming with their husbands. Most of their husbands work as sherbers on the inc trail for G adventures.
So the community isn't doing to bad at all, you can tell that this is improving their lifestyles with their houses and electricity.
Two of the women showed us the process of making the textiles and clothing out of wool.
When it's stripped off the animal it's all knotted and matted.
The first process is to spin the wool and wrap it around a big wooden spinner, it seems this takes forever because they're all doing it. This then produces loads of yarn, secondly they stretch it out and hang it over poles in the ground so it is untangled.
Thirdly they use part of a root from a bush in the highlands, they scrape the root in water with a stone and it produces a natural soap which they clean the wool with, they sometimes use this to clean their hair aswell. The lady demonstrated this and my god the difference in colour from just one wash!
Next they showed us how they dye the colour all different colours. They use flowers and tree roots to get the greens and yellows, different rocks from the mines for silvers and blues, all different coloured corns to get greens and yellows also. To get the reds and purples the women crush the parasites that are on the cactus, their blood is a deep red and they dry the blood. To make other reds and purples they may add salt and rocks from mines, etc. It's incredible to watch it all!
They also don't have any patterns to follow they make it all up themselves!
Another favourite fact of mine they mentioned was that because hey all eat organic foods it prevents their hair going grey, and it's proven! They all have log black hair with very very little grey hairs and the oldest women we seen in the community was around 70. It's bonkers! No hair dye up here!
On the ride out of the Ccaccaccollo community we stopped at a chiycha bar and guinea pig farm. Chiycha is a fermented vegetable drink that is around 4% in alcohol. It tastes a little like wine! It was delicious but we weren't having too much because it's not that safe for us westerner's stomach! There was also a guinea pig 'farm' just a really fancy hut for them. Unfortunately Renzo told us how they they catch and eat them. They find the fattest one and hold them by their neck. Then they spin them around and around breaking their necks and throw them into a boiling tub of water which obviously kills them right off! By boiling them it helps them to peel the fur off and then they cook and stuff with herbs and garlic, etc. It's so wrong! I was going to try one whilst I was out here but I've seen them all now and they're too cute! I can't do it.
Scott has a bad head again and I also have a killer of a toothache. It maybe didn't help that when Scott got back on the bus he smashed his head on the minibus?
The countryside just kept getting more beautiful and peaceful with the huge river, giant mountains and greenery everywhere! The mountains were insanely high, I can't even compared them to anything because they're so huge!! The sacred valley is very nice I must say! I understand now why it's a scared valley to them now!
Ollantaytambo was very nice! It was a little village by the side of the the river with ginormous mountains surrounding it all. The buildings were all a mustard yellow with cobbled streets and a lovely square of course. There were lots of little coffee shops and restaurants, traditional souvenirs and the place had a lot more white people than we have seen all tour.
We went for lunch and I battled through with a tuna sandwich. I could barely open my mouth by this point I was in so much pain, I could barely talk to anyone either. If this pain doesn't go by tomorrow I'm in deep trouble because hiking and camping in this pain is not going to be pleasant.
After lunch Renzo quickly took me and Scott to the pharmacy for him to get some super strong pain killers and me some numbing cream for this toothache.
Afterwards he took around the town and a little hike up to the inca ruins which was a killer because we were rock climbing more than hiking! But it was worth it! It was really warm, fingers crossed for tomorrow!
This town is very picturesque!
We got our snacks for the hike tomorrow in a shop in the town and a few of us went to the choco factory, we had a brownie and cafe latte! Nom nom!
Could not wait for another powerful hot shower, a few of the girls didn't have hot water on their side of the hotel so they came in for a shower! We chilled out in the room which was much needed with this toothache and headache of Scott's.
7pm we met for food at another restaurant and all pretty much had western food. It was so yummy!
The locals were setting fire crackers off! Bloody bonkers. Scared the crap out of me!
I could not wait to get to bed tonight, it was such a comfy bed and pillow! I was super duper excited!!
What ever Renzo got us in the pharmacy is slowly working for the both of us along with extra painkillers too - thank god! Fingers crossed for the morning!
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