Shooting stars and other non-clichés

by Maria Sanchez Arriola (Spain)

I didn't expect to find Peru

Watching the night sky…no doubt a cliché sounding description. Jason Mraz song anyone? A sky full of stars? I mean, people love singing about this kind of stuff. But think about it...especially for city folk like me, actually remembering the last time we were able to see a world of glittering speckles above, so clear and so bright, they felt almost close enough to touch sounds distant. And shooting stars? One after another? Still cliché maybe… But man oh man, when you’re watching them after a 10 hour hiking day, having popcorn made by people I consider to be the modern day superheroes (chefs and porters carrying around 25kg of equipment across 42km) at 3000m in the middle of the Peruvian Andes with a group of strangers-turned-family? Well, it’s a different kind of surreal. In any future trip, you plan, you anticipate, you wonder, you dream....and inevitably, you expect. I’ve learned that the only thing you can actually do before traveling and embarking on an adventure is to expect to be surprised by the unexpected. I didn’t expect to find a sense of peace so deep that thinking back to that time relaxes me more than any meditation or yoga class. We didn’t expect to have the most amazing apple pie in our lives and having to order 3 to the manager’s amusement, just to prolong the experience. I didn’t expect to be surrounded by such a heartwarming group of people that made everything on our trip the embodiment of perfection. I didn’t expect to have chicken soup brought up to my hotel room in Cusco by Chino, a caring hotel worker constantly checking in when I had a stomachache a day before embarking on our Inca Trail adventure. I didn’t expect to have an energy inside of me that I had never experienced before. Or to have meals fit for kings in one of the most breathtaking places on the planet, overlooking majestic mountains in every possible direction. Or to drink a tea so invigorating I risked smuggling 2kg of coca tea leaves back home. I didn’t expect to witness an entire community of people living on reed islands in the highest lake in the world. I didn’t expect to find love in our trekking group. I didn’t expect to have a desire, so strong to come back for more, that it pulls me back in time to 2016 as if it was yesterday. Lack of oxygen at 5000m on rainbow mountain could be to blame. But at a lower altitude now, I can sanely assure you that Peru undoubtedly, and unexpectedly changed my life.