The hospitality, sincerity and simplicity I saw in the rural areas in Peru simply awed me. My husband and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary up in the Andes. Our friends surprised us by a simple cake baked by a hardworking cook. He took special efforts, woke up really early and baked a cake without an oven! It was a truly special anniversary. The locals made it extra special- a little girl with a beautiful smile, a small mischievous boy and a yound lad with a sweet voice sang and made our day!
We had carried a few gifts- crayons, notebooks, soccer balls with us for the kids. The attraction for all materialistic things is universal! The kids came running when we opened the goody bags. We played soccer with the kids. A very unique quality to note was that the young boys returned the soccer ball after playing! They just didn't relaize it was a gift for them. The honesty of returning something that didn't belong to them touched all our hearts.
We were then invited to a local house to see how the locals lived. The simplicity in their ways was evident in the house. The only source of entertainment was a broken 15 year old casette recorder. The one room house was built of mud and hay and had a clay oven in a corner. They offered us baked potatoes and macaroni for lunch. The man of the house is a shepherd and the women made a few handicrafts and worked in the community farms. This close knit community of Patacancha was a wonderful way to end our Lares trek.
