La Esmeralda

This morning I woke up to a bunch of heartwarming messages and well-wishes from friends and family for my birthday (Grandma and Grandpa, thanks for your wishes as well, Mom passed them on!). It made me happy that so many people had thought of me. The overall situation felt odd though. It being my birthday while being in Peru all the while it not really feeling like my birthday at all. But regardless of what it felt like, I was one day older now.

After breakfast, we checked out of our hotel. Our presence and our bikes got a lot of attention from the locals who were all very kind and interested in us and our trip. The lady of the hotel, who also owned a little shop, gifted us some fruit for on the way and wished us well. That day we cycled with sunshine and 24 degrees for most of the day until the weather changed and we even had some rain. All in all, it was strenuous cycling today though. The road was extremely dusty and dirty and it went up and down a lot. Each climb was more exhausting than the last and I could feel my legs were tired from the previous days. That day, the men had made a quinoa salad for lunch because that was better for my easily upset stomach than the white flour buns we usually had. It was tasty, nourishing and comforting 🙂

We cycled until we reached the village of La Esmeralda, where we checked into a very nice hospedaje. It didn’t have warm water but it was rather new, very clean, and spacious. Because we arrived quite early in the afternoon, we went to look for a bakery, where we wanted to buy ourselves a little treat for my birthday. We found a bakery and went away happily with three very tasty cheese and herb empanadas and a puff pastry cone filled with dulce de leche. It’s not mom’s birthday cake, but it was still a very pleasant and special treat. Special, because there were empanadas without meat for once. That evening we went to a restaurant for tallarín as a birthday dinner and quickly realized that the one we had had in Huancaya was SO good, that no other tallaríns could compare. They couldn’t even get close. So this would be our last one for a very long time or at all even. Although the food wasn’t as great as in Huancaya, it was still a nice day and evening together though. After dinner, and in my case a few educational YouTube videos, we went to bed.

Although it didn’t feel like my birthday, it was still a nice day all in all and I appreciated the men’s little efforts to make the day more special for me 🙂

The next day was a rest day, simply to give our bodies some needed rest. La Esmeralda is a cute little village which has a nice flair to it. Mainly because of the liveliness and openness from the people who live there.

For lunch we decided to eat in a pop-up street stall (yes a bit risky but we did it anyways) which served simple but very delicious and nourishing food. She even had beans and lentils so I could get a vegetarian meal without missing out on proteins completely. We chatted, joked and laughed with the locals there for a while as far as our Spanish allowed it. We told the lady how good her food was and decided to have breakfast there the next day for a nourishing and tasty start into another cycling day.

The rest of the day went by without much to mention. We did some personal chores, wrote blog entries, and Göran tended to the bikes while Dad and I did the groceries and got some treats for us at the bakery. Only in the evening, when Jacques boiled water with our burner out on the street for some evening tea, we attracted a bit of a crowd. Partially because he is a tall foreigner, but also because they were intrigued by the little burner. A lot of nice people came to talk to him, ask about us, and tried to teach him some Quechua. Such a spontaneous and friendly encounter despite the language barrier shows once again how kind and open-hearted most of the people in Peru are. Especially in the villages. Before Jacques headed back up a lady gifted him some avocados for on our journey the next day. The people here are very poor and have so little to give and yet, they always do. I think most Europeans could learn a lesson from them…

distance cycled: 45.7 km
elevation gain: 507 m
Actual altitude: 2455 m