I think I fell in love with her on my first night in Cusco. Of course, I don’t take these things seriously anymore, now that I am older. She was the young Peruvian woman who managed the Airbnb where I would stay for my first month in Peru.
She also lived on the property, a sort of South American villa with six rooms. She lived in the room just below mine. She politely greeted me with her dog, Bella by her side.
Bella was not so sure of me just yet. She showed me to my studio apartment behind the lime green door. The loft opened up at the back where two french doors framed the city lights of Cusco at night and painted the mountains in the distance.
There was no heat, as is common in Peru, and the cold Andean air began to move through the room. My bathroom was located below on the first floor, which meant navigating the spiral staircase in the middle of the night if I needed to use the bathroom.
Her name was Surabhi.
It was not a Peruvian name, but Indian, given to her by her mother who was a lifelong student of India and Hindu philosophy and practice. Each of her five brothers and sisters had Indian names and had never eaten a bite of meat in their entire lives.
I learned that Surabhi managed three jobs just to barely get by. She lived at the Airbnb which she managed and was also a Spanish teacher at a nearby immersion school for tourists. On top of that she taught yoga and also worked part-time as a receptionist at a gym.
Somehow, amidst all of these demands, she made me breakfast, then lunch, a plate of rice and beans she kindly shared from her own lunch which she rushed through the kitchen to make on her way to her next job.
She would arrive home late in the evenings by bus to take Bella for a walk just before going to bed only to start the process all over again the next morning.
The next morning I made her a pour over cup of fresh coffee before she rushed to catch her bus.
It was a beautiful arrangement.
Field Notes
The Chaski were the messengers of the Inca empire, traveling the network of Inca roads at high speed.
The training of the Chaski involved running and climbing mountains, so they had to be people with particularly strong, light and agile legs.
The Coca leaf was sacred to the Incas. There were few people who were allowed to chew Coca leaves, considered by the Incas to be a divine plant.
The Inca nobility, the teachers and priests, were possibly the only people who could chew the leaves of the Coca plant.
View From the Road
As I walked by this old woman wouldn’t let me go. “5 soles,’ she said. $1.38. Before I could pass she was already tying the blue bracelet around my wrist with her leathery hands.
On any give day, at least 20 people approach me in a similar manner, to shine my shoes, to offer me a painting for less than one dollar, a masterpiece I could never duplicate.
This is how it is on a typical day in Cusco.
Archives
Enjoy four years of past articles from the Zen and Ink Journals journey in the archives.
Enjoy published articles from my travels.
Subscribe. Donate. Share the Journey.
Zen and Ink Journals represents hundreds of hours of writing over the past decade, sometimes from a train in remote China or a coffee shop in Kyoto, a hammock in Costa Rica or a simple cabin on a mountaintop in Boquete, Panama or Ciudad Colón.
On these pages, I share my observations of kindness and beauty from my adventures in the world and invite you to listen quietly for the call within you to explore the places that beckon your soul.
If you would like to become a regular subscriber, please consider foregoing the cost of one cup of coffee and a pastry each month ($8) and becoming a monthly subscriber.
If you would like to stop receiving emails from Zen and Ink Journals simply click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email.