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PERU, RAINBOW OVER CHURCH YUCAY

After our travels that morning, we had a gourmet lunch at our hotel in the town of Yucay.  As we made our way to the open air restaurant, we were blessed with an enormously beautiful rainbow that arched above the Spanish style church that was on the property .  I felt deeply blessed; it was so beautiful it took my breath away. Walking the stone paths while bathed in the rainbow light felt otherwordly...the presence of Spirit was visible everywhere. My gratitude for the moment, and the exquisite beauty, filled me.

We shared our table with a lovely Buddhist woman who reminded me to ask my body what foods were good for it by muscle testing throughout our travels. She noticed me hesitating at every food tray, uncertain what local delicacies to spoon onto my plate. I was bold enough, then, to sample some llama meat from the buffet. The sauce made it palatable and tender, and my body did well with it, though my mind rebelled a bit. Our food choices are definitely cultural, and I tried to stay open to "tasting" this aspect of the countries that I visited.

Our Buddhist friend mentioned the Karmapa during our lively conversation. We had never heard of him, so she explained that he is the young man who is to be the Dalai Lama’s successor.  She held him in extremely high regard. This began a long succession of synchronicities for us regarding the Karmapa.  We actually had an audience with him when we visited Dharamsala, India, and his presence continues to come up in our lives.

PERU, OLLANTAYTAMBO We visited Ollantaytambo after lunch, a currently inhabited city nestled within the Andes Mountains.  A large rainbow arched above the city, as if to pay homage to the ancient ruins within its borders.  Massive stones abound here, the oldest of which are pre-Incan.  The site is known as the last stronghold of the Incas.  A fountain of flowing water in beautifully adorned stonework still runs within the ruins.  A young boy lounged upon the ancient stones, watching us as we dipped our fingers into the water flow for a blessing.  Our hotel's site was actually an old monastery building, and I found sleeping in our room very difficult that night.  My head and belly hurt.  There were no window screens, as was common even in many upscale hotels worldwide.  A swarm of flies sang their buzzes around our heads. When we called the office about them, someone showed up with a can of insecticide.  We declined its use in our room, so the gentleman returned with an old-fashioned fly swatter, and did his best. We still had a few extra guests with us for the night.  The water ran brown from the faucet, as it did throughout most of Peru. The gardens and grounds of the hotel were exquisitely beautiful, the colors and textures of the flowers filled our senses, and this helped us integrate our sleepless night more easefully.

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