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We hung around Cusco this morning in the hotel, the glass roof with the sun blaring through made us all sleepy in the foyer on the super comfortable sofas!
I made myself get up and take a walk into the square, Scott stayed back and watched the football with Renzo on his phone. There was a huge armed forces parade in the square, it was pretty special watching them all march. I all of a sudden got pulled in the direction of Jack's Cafe by my lack of will power... turns out I wanted that huge chocolate muffin I clocked yesterday in there! I took it to go and ate it back at the hotel, I couldn't eat it all so I left the bottom part - the sponge for Scott, I'm kind I know!
12.30pm we were on our way, a few were feeling a little ruff I think due to alcohol though more than anything! Scott also had a headache and my toothache was making me feel horrible. We went up and up into the hills, away from Cusco. Around 40 minutes later we reached our destination, on the opposites side of the mountain to Cusco we were in the community, Ccaccaccollo. It was a small little village on the side of the mountain in the sacred valley. We pulled up in a deserted market square. All of a sudden though around seven inca women dressed in traditional clothing walked out of nowhere with bunches of flowers.
Renzo introduced us all to the 'mammas' we were going to be split up into 2-3 people per family, we were going to spend the afternoon and evening with them and sleep at their house. I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing I must admit, I did not know what to expect and the big thing was that none of them spoke any English.
Me and Scott got paired with or 'mamma' and took us to her family home which was only around the corner from the market square. We weren't all that far from one another as it was only a small town of 650 people. Our freshly picked bunch of flowers spelt lovely!
We arrived at the house, there were around three of four buildings with a little courtyard in the middle, we weren't actually staying in the same building as the family, we had our own room on the top floor with electricity which is more than I thought we would have and a lovely view of the valley.
We headed downstairs around 2pm and she guided us to a little room where we had lunch, a chicken quinoa soup which was delicious and what I thought would be all, how I was wrong! We had another dish of a potato in sauce with veg and rice (carb overload) it was all delicious! We had an hour to kill and chill out in the room, we mainly just stood and enjoyed the view, we spotted a few of the others in their traditional clothing they had been dressed up in going off to work with their families on the mountain.
It was finally our turn but no traditional clothing for us. We crossed over the road and into what I gather is their garden of crops, he had potatoes and corn growing in full force at the top of the garden, our job was to help the man of the house (very little may I add, as are they all!) we had to weed the garden and turn the mud over fresh for new crops, some that were already their and re growing from last time so we had to be careful what we were pulling out of the ground. We didn't do too bad, although after 20 minutes or so it began to rain so we dropped tools and hid against one of the mud walls with the roof poking out over it.
It's so clever that all their houses are built with mud bricks and not concrete bricks. Scott says that it's a long process and they have to mound the mud for so long and then basically cool it or heat it and re mould, and do something else with it in order for it to stay strong for the houses.
We carried on for around an hour after the rain before we were shipped off his land and back to the 'mamma' of the house. Here she put the traditional clothing on us, I can see now why she didn't want us to wear our clothes because it was a tad dirty.
We followed her out of the house grounds and across the road to the football ground where we met the rest of the guys dressed in all of their outfits. It was lovely to see but this clothing is blinking heavy, there is so much of it all!
The plan here was to play football with the local children, however their weren't many children around to play so we kind of had a 6 a side football game, it was hard running at 3000 metres with a carb over load and loads of heavy clothing on! Well, I'm definitely blaming those factors over me not being fit to run around anyways, and I'm sure everyone else would agree! Proper highland South American football.
We played on and off for about 2 hours, it was a good pre inca workout at such high altitude! We were all feeling it but definitely needed the run around to burn off 7 days of heavy carbs!
After football we went back to the home stay and got changed, dinner was served at 7pm and we had a two course meal again, this time I sort of had to force the food down my mouth because I was still extremely full and my mouth by this point was bloody killing although I wasn't allowed another paracetamol or ibuprofen just yet! So worried about infection...
We had a chicken soup for starter again but this time no quinoa and it was a little thicker sauce. For mains we had a spinach and broccoli omelette with one of the 4000 different kinds of potatoes they grow here in Peru! We were both full and bursting at the seems after this although we felt as though we had to carry going because we felt rude not finishing! Mamma and the grand daughter who was only 4 with a broken wrist (learnt this through sign language) always sat and ate with us at the little table. The daughter - Nancy came in to the room with us after food to try and have a conversation with us, they carry on rambling on in Spanish, even though you and they both know that we won't understand them. Strange!
Scott silly enough told them that I had a really bad tooth Ache, this only led to the worst 'natural remade' I had ever tasted! She pulled a clove from the pot on the window sill and cut the clove in half. Now I had to put the garlic in between my teeth and bite down swallowing saliva and not mushing any of it up to eat. It was so horrible, yes I forgot about the tooth ache but now I was concentrating on the pain he garlic was giving me between the taste in my mouth and the pain in my stomach from it all! (Don't worry I wasn't sick off it all)
Anyways, we sort of grasped that the mamma had 5 children, (2 here, 2 in Cusco and 1 in puno) she has 3 grandchildren and of course have 2 donkeys and alpacas and 1 cat.
With little else to say, Nancy brought her big bag of home made and hand made weaved scarfs, hats, ponchos, etc. It was all very beautiful! I remember Renzo saying earlier that if we want to tip it is better to buy some of their goods rather than give them cash for nothing.
I decided on buying a beautiful weaved scarf, she's was very pleased and hugged me. The money from the scarf will go to the little girl's treatment for her wrist in hospital.
We had an early night because... well what else is there to do? Plus we were actually feeling tired from today. We were under 5 thick wooden blankets and a sheet by 9.30pm, Scott is claiming he has a thick cold and chest infection. Personally I think this is an excuse to his snoring! It's horrendous. I've warned everyone on the trip that they need the ear plugs when we are stopping in the tents. I have kicked and punched him so many times I'm surprised he doesn't have any bruises on his back!
So yeah he was asleep within like 2 minutes of lying on the what felt like concrete mattress. I however was awake until 1.30am with chronic tooth pain not knowing what to do and wanting my mum and dad! I get so bloody helpless, I contemplated extracting my own tooth right now, I feel as though it will take away the pain almost immediately.
I managed to get to sleep around 1.45am but was wide awake by 5am. I wasn't cold at all considering, mind the blankets helped and shh! The farts that I produced aswell. Haha!
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