In the dead old stone

It is cold and dark outside.
Alex and I are lying on her bed, watching `Todo sobre mi madre´ on her laptop. After a few days of initial stress and oddness we are now for the first time at ease for longer than an instant. The film is good. I am in motion, yet the only perceivable movements in my body are my breathing, the beating of my heart, and the movements of my fingers.

The trip to Huancaya was long. Two days all together. The first bus was comfortable. A seven hour trip from Lima to Huancayo. A nights rest. We woke up early, to find that the combi (small bus) had left at 5.15 instead of 5.30. Time tables are guidelines in Peru. Fuck...
There is an alternative. A full car. Like up in the north. Five people inside, and two to add.
´It´s gonna be a long ride´. Alex tells me. Neither of us is particularly looking forward to it.
Four people in the back, three in front. And there we go. It would have taken four hours with the combi. This will take longer. How long? No one knows, we´re in Peru.
Driving with four people in the back means you start out uncomfortable, and it becomes worse as time goes on. Sleeping is no option for me, because my head is way above all other objects in the car, so what´s left is to look outside and try to enjoy the landscape, while my limbs hurt more and more. Moving a toe requires compromise with the person next to you (Alex in my case) and often even with the person next to that person: an old man.
But, yes, the landscape is undeniably gorgeous. The mountains seem to have all the colours of the rainbow, but less bright. After about an hour or so, the earth becomes white. We´re in the highlands. A small break for a warm drink and an egg. We ask how high we are. 4000 meters. Translated from Peruvian, this means between 3500 and 4500 meters. High. It´s cold here.
As we go on, the snow becomes thicker. We move on, but go slower by the step. Stop. At an altitude of about 4,5 km, a 10 cm thick layer of snow, and an outside temperature of, I guess, - 5º C, we are waiting in line for a huge truck. I remember from Guatemala that such situations can take hours.
But we are lucky. The huge truck starts moving backwards after ten minutes. And forwards shortly after that.
On we go, through the snow. Up... down ... left ... right … down ... left ... down ... right, until the snow finally fades, and we reach another small village. We stop for a minute, and go on. Roadblock.
The driver steps out of the car, and opens the door for us.
´Time to stretch your legs´, he says.
A few meters ahead, people are working on the road. When this happens on a highway in Europe, you just drive by with, say, 90 km/h. Not here. Roadworks in the mountains mean ´no passage`. And since there is only one road to whatever destination, it means `wait`. So we wait. Luckily there is a river nearby, so I go there and throw some stones in. I soon realize the sun burns my face of. My sunscreen is deep inside my luggage. Forget it.

Alex is in a hurry, because she has a meeting in Huancaya. It´s my first time here, so I manage to enjoy the waiting. I hike up the mountain and reach a point where I can see the roadworks. Our car could fit next to them. Easily. I don´t get it. But looking at how far they are, I reckon it will take about half an hour more. Thirty become sixty, but when everyone is completely bored, we finally go. In the car, Alex looks at me with a smile. ´I yelled at the lady`, she says, referring to the one who wouldn´t allow us to drive. My heart glows up. She clearly understands this country better than I do. It´s 12.30 now, we´ve been traveling for seven hours on a trip that ought to take four. One hour to go, but from this point the environment will become better by the mile.

Huancaya (The name means dead old stone), the village where we live has about 50 families. It lies next to a river with sapphire blue lagoons. You can see their bottom, regardless of the depth, which can be several meters. It lies in between steep rocks, with a few flowers here and there. I guess they peak around 150 meters higher than the village. The villagers live of the milk they sell, and some sell Lama meat and Cuy, which is the national hamster snack. There are several trout farms in the surroundings. The streets are paved, with in the middle a small canal for drainage. Behind the village, you find a few idyllic bridges, from where you can look at the clear crystal blue waterfalls. Tall eucalyptus trees grow all around. It´s fucking paradise.
The host family is cute. A mom, a dad, two sons and a daughter. They have a cat, a puppy and a little lam, who says mèèèè all day. All equally cute. At breakfast they give us fresh milk and cheese, with lunch a fresh trout with rice. This is a healthy place.
My room is big and dark. It´s next to Alex´, which is small and light, and way cozier. We have a little common hall, and a front door on the bottom floor. Above us lives the family. The toilet and the shower are in a little hut outside.

When the film is done I say goodnight to Alexandra, and grab the toilet paper to go to the loo before bed. I step outside half in dreams. Without any suspicion I look up. It´s as if beauty punches me straight in the face. For a second I can´t breathe. Then comes a breath that feels like a hyperventilation. I´m overwhelmed by the brightness, the twinkling, and the infinite number of stars in the sky that seem to scream at me all at once.
“O yes, she told me this”
When I realize I won´t be able to sleep for a while, I decide to dress a little warmer, and to go for a walk to the lagoons. No way I can let them just hang there. When I pass the final lantern, my shade gets taller and taller until it slowly fades into the night. I´m walking through a dark alley in Peru, yet I am safe as I can be. As I walk on, the stars get brighter and brighter. I decide to sit down on a big statue of a duck. There I watch the stars.
For the first time in my life I see the milky way not as a vague fog of light, but as a clearly distinguishable group of shiny clouds with stars inside them. It reminds me of a painting I saw in Cuzco, but a xillion times more beautiful. At my right, a group of stars is twinkling as the coles from a campfire that has just been spread out. A little village where people live, but infinitely big and far. I feel infinitely little. But big becomes small and small becomes big. It all doesn´t matter. I see many falling stars, and it makes me laugh. What in whoever´s name would I want to wish for now? There is nothing, it is perfect. Even though I am alone, I know I´m not. There are many witnesses of this very moment, some are close, some are far but I love them all.

I go back after a while. I feel whole as I walk. This is where I´ll be for now. A place where slow emotions receive the time to be lived. A place where healing is a way of life. A place where even the deaf hear natures call.