Ventanillas del Otuzco

This weekend we hosted two women in their 30s from France who have taken a sabbatical and are traveling south america. They connected with Fred through couch surfing, which is a network of travelers around the world that host or are hosted in whichever city around the world. Their coming was a breath of fresh air that made me realize again how exciting traveling is, and how improbable and sweet the connections you make with people here are. Such randomness, the people you meet when youve pulled up your roots, but so exciting and exhilerating! Im not really doing a very good job explaining this very concisely, but I really like the idea of couch surfing, I think it brings to a point the best parts about traveling. On either end, hosting or visiting, the action of two people from improbable ends of the world living together for a few days on the basis of friendship sort of zooms out your perspective on the world for a bit. You become aware of your life not just in terms of my building, my neighborhood, my city but instead my origins, my current location, places you dream of going, and how reachable the whole world is. Either end, the experience is extremely refreshing. Ive titled this post Ventanillas del Otuzco, because that is what we went and visited with them, but our site seeing is completely overshadowed by what their visit signifies, so I wont bother writing about the pre incan gravesites, although they were interesting.
This reminds me of a thought Ive had several times while here, another thing brought to a head by traveling, that being "everywhere you go, there you are". Traveling is very cool because I am aware much more frequently of the present moment, where I am, what I am doing, what I want to be doing in the future. I think that is promted by unfamiliar landscapes, people, culture, experiences. In the US, I am very accustomed to life there and its easier to sort of check out and get into autopilot. I should remember that home is another exciting place on the globe, so dont take it for granted!