Home-stay story

Nov 21 2019

By Siri

We have spent 2 weeks in Peru visiting ancient Inca sites around Cusco. One of the memorable experiences was when we went to stay in the small town of Zurite, outside of Cusco. The small town has the second oldest church in Peru, but mainly it is built of clay houses and farms. As we drove up to our home-stay it took some time because the “streets’’ were so narrow, plus we waited as people walked their cows through the town to graze in the fields. After arrival and a warm welcome, we had a little tour of the house. The house was typical with a cute garden/courtyard in the center. The one room my family and I shared was warm and cozy considering the rainy weather we had. Then we sat down to an interesting breakfast including steamed potatoes, plain corn tamales, whole wheat bread and to drink – steaming hot fava bean tea served in a clay cup. I was surprised that there were no plates. The first thing on the agenda, go see a not well-known Inca site Quillamarka, including a moon temple and cave carvings. In the mist, 2 dogs were herding sheep and goats and a man was walking two donkeys. We took photos of this pretty site and after that, drove to the house for lunch of quinoa soup. I did not eat much because my appetite was low from [A] high altitude and [B] I did not find the flavors that interesting.  

After lunch we went to farm corn at our tour guide’s family farm. The tradition is, while people work, others play music from a small drum and flute to make the harvest a good harvest – that was one of my jobs. Our guide’s name is Bryan; his parents still live in the same house and now raise guinea pigs in the room that had been the bedroom of our guide and his 2 brothers when they were kids. Bryan told us about how he would work in the fields before school and about 2 hours after school and on weekends when he was growing up. His dad is 82 and still works 3 times faster any of us. As we were working, Bryan’s dad brought out a typical corn beer that the Incas made called chicha. He brought out a pitcher and one glass for all to share. My mom tried one sip and she said ‘’it tasted like sour beer”, not really corn kombucha. I thought the work was hard after ten minutes. It is harder to imagine this life all day. After a long day we relaxed a little and at around 6 pm we had dinner of corn veg pancake, quinoa, lupine porridge, and crispy guinea pig; well I didn’t eat the guinea pig. After dinner I was so tired that I fell right to sleep once I was settled down. That same night it was so windy that I was awake for like an hour before we woke up and had breakfast.

The second day we hiked around the hillsides. First, off to see the pre-Inca petroglyph paintings and second a hike to the hummingbird terrace. To reach the high valley walls with the petroglyphs we passed through the eucalyptus tree forest and crossed about nine little streams.  Local people cook with firewood and most of the native forest was cut down, so some time ago Spanish thought to bring a fast-growing tree that they knew from Spain, eucalyptus trees. They brought a few over and they adapted to this ecosystem. Soon more grew so that they used them to make firewood and now the native forests are growing back in some places. After we passed through the forest and the tiny streams we reached the ‘’trail’’ it was so bushy and overgrown that when we reached near the top we had to wait a while because our guide had to make stairs with a machete. The paintings were made around 1500 BC; that’s what the scientists think. We saw a sun, a moon, some lamas and a painting of lightening.

Next, we went to see the hummingbird terraces the Incas made in the shape of a sacred animal. It was neat to see a clear hummingbird in the hillside. We took some photos and went back down but it turned out that we had to walk more – like a hour more to some of the biggest terraces in the sacred valley. Finally, we reached the van to drive to the house for lunch before returning to Cusco.

It would be neat growing up and playing in these hills if I didn’t have to farm so much. It was interesting to really see how villagers live and how much effort it takes to put simple food on my plate.

Posting late because Wi-Fi has been tricky in Patagonia