Love & Light

 

 

LOVE and LIGHT

 part 1

 Love and the light is just damn well everywhere these days.

Particularly at this time of year. Ho Ho Ho and the Christmas cheer is wrapped around us like a present under the tree.

White washed walls of churches gleam with a saintly pureness whilst the deafening laughter of children playing endlessly on the beaches.

A tad overwhelming to some of us.

 Love and light.

It even comes in the overpriced green smoothies we drink from the must be seen at cafes.

More love can be added via spoonfuls of super food boosting our bodies with extra vitality and doses of light with each sip.

 

The light is bright and relentless in these super food high vibe times we live.

Advertising billboards flash sets of pearly teeth that gleam perfectly white and bright over purchases that are surely to make you that extra holiday happier.

Love and fucking light is glaring us in our shell shocked faces.

 Positive affirmations are stated as we stretch into yoga asanas originating from the ghee and curry filled India.

 So much love and light has been added to the world of yoga that even cooked food has nearly become obsolete.

Main stream health now a days has lost its healthy belly and is full of skinny raw vegan injected neuroticism of privileged 4WD drivers running the organic only corporation that we have become.

Love and light now comes in a power suit.

Not enough love and light in your Costa Rican holiday? 

 

Lights of a thousand colours are offered at retreat centers in the small cup of black thick foul tasting liquid served as medicine by someone that shakes a rattle wearing seeds and feathers from the forest around their necks.

Love and light.

 

 It is damn well everywhere.

 Buy it, drink it, gift it or chant it into existence.

Take a selfie at sun set on the beach with palm trees by your side. 

 

Instagram it into your public profile with fluffy words proclaiming how much you have grown since arriving in paradise.

 Order a sachet of love and light with your new yogi stretch pants or wear it around your neck with lotus and rose quartz.

Love and light.
 

If you don’t have it by now then you are not practicing enough.

Stick to the love and light vibration and the world just about guarantees your wildest dreams will come into manifestation.

VIVA CUBA

VIVA CUBA

There is a life in Cuba you can feel as you walk the streets.

It has a beat and a heat that seeps into every word whispered and spoken to you as small espresso cups of coffee are dished out, glasses of rum are passed around with cigars and invitations of a night of love making are freely offered. 

It resides in the hearts of its people and it is never dormant. 

Music is heard to be playing every where. 

Old smiling men on their trombones, saxophones, Congo drums and maracas.

The young and the old shuffle their feet to salsa steps as others sing into microphones. 

Buena Vista literally means good view and the older generation performing is exactly that.

On our first night in Habana we had the pure luck of seeing the 94 yr old woman sing from the original Buena Vista Social Club that made it to international fame. Dressed to the nines in a full length sequenced dress, up to her elbow in black gloves and a huge glittering ring on her finger she belted out numbers into the microphone with a gusto you rarely see now a days. At one stage she proclaimed "Gente, todavia soy viva !"

People, I am still alive.

Behind her, fanning themselves against the thick warm air as there is no air conditioning in the places they sing was a 10 piece band that played all night. Men and women of all ages got up in three piece suits and elaborate dresses to sing their hearts out. They were performing in the true sense of a performance. One they had done many times before and one they will do many times to come. 

This is their life.

A life of music in Habana.

Old cars, old buildings, old stories and old songs.

 It is all still so very alive.

I have wanted to travel to Cuba for as long as I can remember. It is not as if I am completely up with the true line of events politically or even really listen to their music that much. The calling to go to Cuba is one deep within my physcy that is unexplainable. 

 I remember a very recent pass life that occurs here on this continent. I am a rebel fighting for the freedom of my country, caught by the army and interrogated.   When I was in Cuba just now I wondered if it had been there that this lifetime took place.

My travel companion was my young friend from Argentina whom I had met and had a most delicious affair with in Peru over a year ago. We would spend  the early hours of the chilly morning, fighting the need to fall asleep by drinking more coffee and listening to music on "YouTube" performed in Habana.

Over a year later Cuba s heat looked promising and so did the heat between us.

My first real holiday since the birth of my son nearly ten years before, I was so ready for Cuba.

Like with many countries in Central and South America, when I land nothing seems all that foreign to me. A familiarity settles on my skin and I drink it all in as if I am returning home. 

Habana was no different. 

By the end of breakfast on the first morning I was receiving hugs from the head lady of where we were staying as if I were her long lost grand daughter.

On arriving the night before just as the clock was about to turn midnight Gabriel had come racing down the stairs and we hugged for so long and so hard that I actually came away from that embrace with what felt like a cracked rib. 

I spent the whole journey in Cuba in a lot of pain.

As it turned out my closest companions for Cuba were of the nearly and completely broken kind.

What seemed like a cracked rib, a broken heart and a credit card that did not work because of a linked bank relationship with the US.

Smelling of stale cigarettes and rum Gabi had stories of conversations and invitations from the men and families of these men that had fought along side of Che Chevara.

Six hours after landing onto the Island he had managed to form close relationships with the locals who had Cuba s history deep in their blood and half the neighborhood knew I was arriving.

Habana is a city lined with street after street thick with history of every grand stone laid in immense buildings that are falling down, crumbling with age and tiredness whilst playing our song.

Street corners, small bars, large bars, out of the way cafes all have music being played live at their entrances. 

Washing hangs and drys from each balcony whilst young fit men loiter around their bike taxis hustling for a customer. Pretty girls are the ones they want to take for a ride. They do their best to lure you in with their sweet as honey words, well versed and repeated like a broken record all day and night. They hope that one, just one will be taken by their offer and ride off into the sun set or dusty city street with them. A ten peso ride for a few minutes or for a few hours, maybe even a night. 

Life is full of hope in Habana.

 

In a country where the sentence in prison for killing a cow is up to forty years and that for murder is around seven the hospitality of the people whom are all in the danger of losing everything for hosting tourists if they don't have a permit is astounding.  The education level of EVERY man woman and child is impressive. On a small beach  on the carribean side we spent three days talking politics, life and escape with a local hat selling bordering alcoholic. Yet his knowledge of the world was impressive. 

In fact we spent the whole two weeks talking politics. Education is high on the Cuban governments provision. A long with a list of rations per month that include rice, coffee, oil and sugar that Cubanos can get cheaper, the high education system in place means most of your waiters, taxi drivers and tourist hat sellers have actually studied some sort of medicine or law and are well versed in their knowledge of the other parts of the world. Every Cuban I met knew where Australia was wanted to know whom was our prime minister presently.

Education is king. 

Competeing with sugar doctors are one of the highest most valuable exports of Cuba.  Many are exported. The average wage for a doctor inside of Cuba is eight dollars a month. And although medical services are free for Cubans, the lines of waiting are long. So Doctors receive bribes of money, meat and cheese. In the end not much is free at all.

Everyone has a creative way of making ends meet. Although the monthly rations are designed to give locals a fairer chance of obtaining the basics, it is never enough. About half a kilo of sugar is to last two people in a house hold for a month. Seeing as how much sugar they put in their coffee, this is never enough, believe me.

 

Once they have gone through their allocated cheaper rations, all other food beyond that must be paid for at the higher rate. To receive your food allocation you must go to a Bodega in the area you are registered. For some this means returning to suburbs every month from where they may have moved to, just to get their supplies. 

Cows belong to the state. Milk is given to children up to the age of seven and from the age of 8 to 11 some kind of yogurt is given out.  Cubanos can buy powdered milk or milk in a plastic bag, but the expense is often out of the reach of most. 

Chickens and goats don't belong to the state. Other small animles such as the guinea pig and rabbit also belong to the owner. But only for personal consumption. As with vegetables, you can raise these animals but they are not to be on sold to anyone unless the government has approved your household as a seller of such goods. Eggs are rationed at 11 per person per month and so is chicken meat.

Monsanto has no place in Cuba. 

They have never arrived onto the Island.  

Thank GOD

All fruit and vegetables are seasonal and grown nearly 100 percent organic.  Super markets are not something you see.  More like big open spaces with large long shelves containing bulk product on display. Items like bottled water go quickly bought up by tourists. 

The biggest hope locals have of making any money is from the tourists. Yet to host tourists they need to apply to the government to open a "Casa Particular".  A Cuban does not have the right to meet someone in the street, or in a cafe or on the beach and invite them back to their home. As we were catching the local buses and were amongst the locals, we were always given the front seats and if anyone was seen talking to us that looked as if they could be bothering us, they were asked to move or leave. 

 In a place like Trinidad where the buildings are from the Victorian era, grand and large and regal, the Cubans are not allowed to actually go inside any of the restaurants, cafes or lobbies of the hotel. The government has created a class system between the Cubans and Foreigners. I felt we had gone backwards nearly one hundred years.   The only Cubans allowed to go inside these establishments were those delivering bags, pastries and ongoing tickets. 

This did not stop many of the Cubans we met. 

Taken in by people when we had no money and fed by families that gave us everything they had, we were shown hospitality from the rebels heart.

It is not just food that is rationed. So are the internet cards. Only a certain amount are sold per day and access to wifi was only introduced about four to five months ago.  Once connected your one hour time limit is generally used up waiting for pages to load. It became more of a chore to do than a pleasure. So we gave up on spending frustrating hours sitting on a park bench  attempting to write emails that never got sent.

 

A long with the petrol for cars, many products come from Venezuela.  Clothes are bought in by family members that have in some way or another managed to fly out of Cuba due to family connections on the outside. Shops don't exist for the locals to go into and buy clothes. 

Once a shipment has arrived word gets out with an address to visit and a mass scramble soon follows. 

I met a man the other day here in San Jose who s cousin was imprisoned for selling blue jeans that he had managed to get into the country. By all accounts prison was not that bad. At least he had running water and three meals a day. 

One of Habana s biggest problem is the lack of running water.  It is only turned on in the afternoon and every bathroom has huge barrels which are filled to get through the next twenty four hours. Sometimes the water is not turned on and days go by with out it.  

 For those that don't have the luxury of barrels gather around taps in the streets and fill up what ever containers they have.

Those that have applied and received permission  to sell vegetables, roam the streets pushing their wooden carts yelling out their presence and prices.

Local cafes are bascially holes in the walls.  Many behind iron barred windows. 

Little, and I mean tiny expresso cup sized servings of thick black sweet coffee are sold for 1 peso... about 5 cents.  Price and size meant I would often drink about 3 or 4. Besides the conversation over coffee in the street was alwasy delightful.  Most of my coffee was served by women and especially in Cuba women mostly talk about sex. Everyone wanted to know if I was getting enough, from who and did I need any help in obtaining more nights of passion.

Have I mentioned I Love Cuba yet?

As with every country I travel to it is with the women I fall in love with.

 The spirit of the feminine that is wild and free no matter what life has thrown at them. Divorce, poverty, multiple children and homelessness. What I always see is the constant rise of love in the hearts of the women I meet.

Music is at the center of the heart of Cuba. 

Sex is on every ones mind it seems all the time in Cuba

And the heart of Cuba beats with a sensual step that is everywhere.

When you live in a country where your life is controlled by what you can and cant do, where you are unable to leave the country unless you flee via a boat over the water or have a family member to sponsor you in another country. When you are controlled to the point that even talking to tourists is deemed not so safe depending on what you are talking about then what is left to enjoy is music and sex. 

And the Cubans do both very well.

There is heat in the sun and heat in the Cubans blood. 

What struck us both was the difference in attitude to almost everything between the older European tourists that have so much and the Cubans that have so little.

Whilst the Cubans were fanning themselves on stage, singing and dancing with all they had wearing the hugest grins and laughing all night, the pale tourist sat at the tables as if they were staring into space. Void of life in their bodies it was hard to even find someone smiling. 

Coming from countries where they have choice. Where for all intense and purposes they have everything we would want as humans to live on this planet.. homes with running water, supermarkets to buy food from, choice of work, freedom to travel and freedom of speech. Yet these people we saw everyday were hard pressed to even smile. Dance they did not, laughter they shyed away from and their lives seemed to carry the air of depression. 

Yet all around them the Cubans with no freedom of speech or travel, no supermarkets to choose their food from and no choice of work to do spent their days and nights filled with laughter, song and the promise of sensuality.

It is as if the whole country was born under the sun sign of Scorpio. 

 

Maybe this is why I felt so at home.

Living life from a place of pure sensuality is to me the norm and the only reason worth getting out of ( or staying in ) bed for. Every time I sat to speak with a woman, especially the women over fifty, there was a recognition in our eyes for the yearning to just live for the sake of pure joy and love.

The Cubans move their bodies in a suggestive way as they talk,  as they walk and most definitely as they dance. When you have nothing there is nothing left to do but live.

Gurus have been saying this for centuries.

Who needs a Guru when you have Cuba. 

VIVA CUBA.

COFFEE

 

COFFEE

One of the things I miss most about Australia is the coffee.

On leaving three years ago it had become an art form, an obsession by many and truth be told, way too much importance had been placed on the brew.

Baristas are trained, well paid and many places may as well not even open their doors for trading if their coffee is not up to a high standard only the wealthy in the world can afford to be obsessed about. 

And it is just not the coffee bean that has to be of high standard. 

It is all about the milk. 

Not to be burned or frothed, cappuccinos now a days are creamy and definitely are not full of bubbles. 

Lattes come with a 1 to 2 cm head, never to be served as a flat white.

From a country that has fostered an elitess society around the brew, I now live in a country that grows some of the best coffee in the world. 

 

With ideal growing conditions of fertile soil, high altitude, and a cool climate the Arabica coffee plant was first grown in Costa Rica near the end of the 1700s. 

Realizing the enormous economic potential of coffee the government offered free land to coffee farmers in the 19th century to encourage production. During this time, production skyrocketed. By 1829, the revenue from coffee exports surpassed tobacco, sugar, and cacao. 

Creating a wealthy upper class of growers and traders the role of coffee in the Costa

Rican economy contributed to the modernization of the country. It helped construct the National Theater in San José and build a railroad to the country’s Atlantic coast.

Grow it they do, but a good brew here in Costa Rica is one of the hardest things to find.  

Most of the best coffee grown in this country is exported out of it, leaving the low grade bean to be consumed by the locals. 

Not only is the coffee consumed inside of Costa Rica sub standard compared to what the rest of the world receives from here, but it is also put through a sock. 

As horrible as that sounds it is true. 

Coffee Costa Rican style is black and sieved drip style through a cloth that traditionally hangs from a wooden stand with the coffee cup or collector pot beneath.  A simpler version of the much to left be desired North American drip style of coffee popular with cheap hotels.

Unlike the north American version that uses disposable papers, the Costa Rican style is a sock that is re used and washed until it is no longer recognizable as a coffee maker. Sewn onto a ring of wire all socks through out the country look hand made and their simplicity is genius and unchanged wether you are in the house of a farmer or in a five star hotel.

Traditional it may be. Delicious it is not. 

Even Costa Rican friends of mine will agree that good coffee inside of their own country is hard to find. Coffee Machines that serve an expresso with the tell tale signs of perfection of a creme on top the color of stained pine wood is a rarity , not the norm.   They do exist and the famosity is rising, but to open a cafe in Costa Rica a good coffee machine it is not a requirement like it is in Australia.

Costa Rica is not alone in serving bad coffee.

 Peru is actually worse. Local coffee is served as a thick liquid not unlike soy sauce, which you then pour desired amount into a cup of hot water. Watered down liquid coffee. Not tasty at all nor not one bit satisfying.

Liquid Coffee served in the markets of Peru

Drinking coffee in Costa Rica is like traveling around in the eighties. Machines sponsored by Nestle that are push button offerings of bad lattes, bad cappuccinos and bad coffee beans are considered by most the better version than the sock. 

When it comes to this, give me the sock any day.

Enter stage left, Starbucks.

The international numbness of belonging and feeling safe has arrived to San Jose.

Staffed by chirpy locals and trained not to burn the milk, the only thing it really has going for it is the copy cat of good over the top service and the knowing that if you liked your coffee in Plaza de Armas Cuzco, in the Lima airport, or in San Telmo in Buenos Aires, you will surely know that it will be to your liking here in San Pedro in San Jose.

 

Outisde on the street the traffic is loud, dirty and relentless. Most new small businesses offering the bohemian style cafe experience is wide open to the street. 

Starbucks with its buying power offers a safe haven to all that is uncomfortable. Back ground music buffers out the street noise whilst the air conditioning, wifi and copy cat menu provides customers with a sense of being anywhere in the world. 

Now locals can feel like they have been somewhere. 

The cost of a piece of carrot cake that comes in at $9 AU and coffee that averages $6 AU it is obviously worth the price to enough people. Local coffee else where costs between 600 to 900 colones . That is between $1.50 to $2 for a cup of black sock brew.

 Starbucks has introduced the latte and cappuccino to the land of coffee for the price of elite safety and sameness. 

For years the company did not enter into Costa Rica believing that a country that produces such great coffee would have no need to host the empire of Starbucks. 

Sitting in a said establishment of San Pedro yesterday sharing a Chai Latte with my son over the period of two hours whilst watching Pirates Of The Carribean on my laptop, this theory has been proved completely wrong.

The place filled up over and over again through out the afternoon.

As the door let in a constant stream of wealthy locals all wanting to pass their moment of peace from the outside chaos eating from paper plates with plastic forks and drinking from the new look red coffee cup of Starbucks, I would safely say that this franchise has certainly found its coffee niche in a country that produces a hell a lot of it.

Already it is a small pool of a populous to gain any business from here in Costa Rica. With such a franchise opening it leaves to wonder if it is a take over that will benefit this country or once again the big cats sitting in their franchise office head quarters elsewhere.

It is also left to see if the coffee will be imported to serve at the green painted and brick walled signature Starbuck establishments. Will Starbucks take the initiative and support only local growers of the country they are trading in , or will they begin the unspeakable and import most of its beans into this country where the value of the country’s coffee exports is up 40 percent to $56.1 million in this year of 2015. 

Coffee is King , in many shapes and form. 

 Yes Life Is Awesome.

A Traveling Mother & Her Son

 

Back To Peru

BACK TO PERU

For nearly ten years I have traveled with my son. 

 He has had a passport since before he ate food and has basically been attached to my hip and carry on luggage every trip I have taken since his birth.

 Hawaii, Bali, Singapore, France, Belgium, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to name some of the places we have been together.

 

So it was monumental when I returned to the little village in Peru last month where we use to live last year, without him.

For a decade I have maneuvered my way through airports, onto planes and through customs with him constantly by my side. 

My trusty side kick through airport lounge after airport lounge.

I was leaving Lima after flying from Cusco to board a plane direct to San Jose, Costa Rica, all on my own.
 And it felt Good. 
I had only been away for a week and I was not sure if I should be missing him more or if this new found freedom of solo travel was something I could really get use to.

We had lived in Urubamba in the Sacred Valley of Peru for seven months the year before. An experience that touched us both so deeply that it became indescribable to talk about. It was a feeling so deep that we did not even really know how profoundly it had effected us until we left. I came away from Peru with a deeper understanding of how it is to be truly humble and grateful for what we have in this gift simply called life.

My return trip to Peru was one of sorting things out.
We had left suitcases and large storage bags of cloth, rugs, gifts and clothes as we had entertained the idea of returning to maybe live there again.
But now that we call Costa Rica home, it was time to bring these things here.

From the moment the small plane started to descend into the valley of Cusco and head for the tarmac my heart was open. A smile crept onto my face and stayed there for the whole 9 days. I had a list of people I wanted to see yet had made no fixed plans and had not even contacted some of them knowing that it would all flow.

As soon as I had bargained a taxi ride for ten soles way up to the Rincon area where mass slaughters use to take place eons ago to drop my bags at my friends house, I descended down the rocky steps towards San Blas then onto the San Pedro market to get myself a green smoothie. 

Although it is cold in Cusco a green smoothie from my "cascera" was high on my must do list. 

I always went to the same woman, which is how it generally works in Peru. Once you have linked a relationship of some kind to someone that serves you your smoothie or juice just how you like it, you stick to them like glue.

 This relationship enables the privilege of having your favorite drink begin to be prepared for you before you even sit down if you are spotted in the area beforehand.

It also means that often the best greens and mangoes are kept aside in anticipation of your visit.  To this day I still can not remember the name of my "Casera" in the San Pedro market, but she looks after me and fills my smoothies with so much goodness that I can feel the love sliding down my throat each time I order my breakfast from her.

 In the same place you order your smoothie filled 

 with goodness of fruit and greens, you can also get a smoothie made from beer, eggs and condensed milk. Mixed with a hell of a lot of sugar this is literally a bomb that slides down into your belly waiting for disaster.

 

Next stop, before the real shopping began was "Green Point" a vegan restaurant in a back lane near San Blas Plaza. Why Green Point? for the HUGE dark chocolate Vegan cake that they serve. 

Enough on its own this cake is certainly something not to miss. I was so looking forward to tasting its richness that I was taken a back by the time it was actually served to me. On a huge round white plate it came with a toffee sculpture on top, mango and raspberry sauce and a load of vegan whipped cream. I bow down to this chocolate cake. 

A meal in itself it kept the smile on my face all day.

Aside from the incredible architecture and history that is so deep in the small streets of Cusco that surrounds you every where you go, it is the Peruvian women that touch my heart so deeply. They have a sense of humour that is sometimes hidden but if you take a moment to connect with a smile and small joke to break the ice then a whole new world opens up.  

Some of my most favourite moments in Peru are spending time with these women in the markets giggling like young teenagers.  It also means I get quite the bargain when buying their wares and even more humbling is I am gifted so much from them.
 After spending time talking about our children, swapping recipes and telling them stories of afar I never leave with out bags of coffee, an extra block of cacao, a small container of pure special honey or an extra bag of coca leaves given to me as a gift.  These women have taught me a lot about giving. They have next to nothing compared to the standards I hold my life in yet they give all the time. They give freely and from their heart and I am often leaving with tears pooling in my eyes of immense gratitude for their gesture which is more than just about the cacao, coffee or tea. It is a gesture a woman recognising something of herself in another. 

Most of these women are single mothers.
Most of them have stories of domestic abuse and abandonment and horrendous family sexual abuse. They live in a culture that is stuck between machoism and a displacement of identity where alcohol is a common form of escapism and a catalyst for abuse that is as common as rising for breakfast. 

These women live a hard life here in the cold with no hot water if any running water at all. Most houses are never finished creating living conditions as an extra challenge against the cold. Life is hard and they often wear the same clothes until they fall apart and just add on another layer. Their feet are constantly exposed as they wear sandals made from old car tyres and yet they always have a smile. 
And their smiles are precious.
Their smiles show the light that glimmers behind their long day of hard work. 

Arriving into the village of Urubamba I was really excited to see my Casera Maria from whom I always bought my stores. She always kept aside the best honey, the freshest milled flours from quinoa and Kiwicha for Allandes pancakes and the freshest organic coffee that she grinds herself. She is now making her own cacao paste in her back yard. 

And it is GOOD ! 

The day she gifted me some to try i went home to my friends house straight away to make chocolate and I could taste and feel the love and attention she puts into her work. It was like silk sliding down my throat.
I returned the next day and bought three kilos of it.

 Even though Urubamba is deep in the dry snow peaked mountains of the Sacred Valley it is only three hours from the beginning of the jungle that takes you to Machu Pichu. This means the markets are filled with mangoes, Lucuma, avocados, passionfruit, papayas, pineapples and so many other good fruits. Eating well in the valley is easy. But the water is an issue. Every household, juice bar and restaurant spends all day boiling water and transferring the boiled water to flasks lined up on the counters ready to use. If you arrive too early in the mornings to the juice bars your smoothie will be made with water that is still warm or even quite hot needing to add ice made from the boiled water from the day before. 

This is constant work and still most of us suffer from stomach problems much of the time. Gas is a constant companion and a bloated stomach becomes the norm. 

Not always comfortable but you are never alone.

There are two things I really love doing in Peru.
 Shopping and going out to restaurants.

Reason being they are both so affordable.

All traditional Peruvian restaurants serve a daily menu that includes, an entree, soup and main meal with a juice all for the one price. My favourite Vegan restaurant includes a dessert with theirs. A Bargain and ever so good. 


 The colours in the Sacred Valley of Peru are mind blowing. Considering the surroundings of dry rocky mountains it is even more astounding what comes from their natural dyes.

 Collecting lichen off of the mountain sides, gathering leaves and flowers from plants that grow all around and ochre from the rocks that line the river beds the women make powders and boil the plants with other elements to bring the colors out. Whilst traveling on these dusty roads the colors of a woman's skirt or the Poncho of man on horseback will catch your eye as it shines brilliant against the landscape. Children run around dressed in bright red and orange ponchos and hot pink with irredescent greens and yellows in their skirts.  The brightness of these colors distracts from the grubbiness of their skin and feet and how dirty their clothes really are.

 

The heat of the day from high elevation and the sharp coldness of the night causes your skin to crack and dry out until it hurts. Aging in these conditions is rapid. Whilst running around in ponchos, leg warmers and up to three scarves at a time you also need a sun hat. The young children are often seen with dark rosy cheeks. Mostly caused from malnutrition.

 The sun also burns their skin. 

All Peruvians in the Sacred Valley wear long sleeves in the form of woollen sweaters no matter how hot it is to avoid getting burnt form the searing sun.  Hot days and freezing nights cause for hard living conditions. Oh how I love Peru but to live there is not something I want to endure. It feel alike that so much of the time. It is hard work. As beautiful as the place is and as humble and soft the people are, the conditions for life are hard. Heating is scarce and proper insulation in the housing is all but non existent.
This trip back to Peru made me see how Costa Rica is definitely home.
Pura Vida.
Bacan.

Sacred Valley you are always deep in my heart.

Melissa Boord
Yes Life Is Awesome
A Traveling Mother & her Son.
October 2015