19th Day Adventures

Today was kind of a lazy day. We had no set schedule so we slept in and had a late breakfast. I had my last good shower before camping (sorry Mom and Dad some of my dreads would not come out). Then, we all walked around town with our new guide, Alan. Until lunch, he walked us around to famous sites and talked about the history. We stopped at a horrible little restaurant for lunch and Luke broke some bad news to us. Today was his last day with us. His grandmother had gotten really sick and his parents wanted him to go home. It definitely put a damper on our day. After lunch, we went to the markets in the plaza to buy gifts. Cecilia, Nisty, and I chipped in to buy a traditional mask thing for him and he loved it.
We walked back to the hotel and the van was waiting there to take us to our next destination. Our bags were put in the car and we all said goodbye to Luke. We started the drive to Kamicancha but stopped about an hour and a half in, in the town of Ollantaytambo. This was Alan's hometown. We had pizza in his restaurant and stocked up on water and snacks before boarding the van again. It took another 2 very bumpy hours to reach our small village. Tourism doesn't exist here. The van stopped at the end of the road and we all got out. About 50 kids came running around the corner. They were all smiling and laughing. We they handed each of us a bunch of flowers and threw confetti on our heads. We took pictures and before we could help, they all went to the back of the van to grab our bags. It was so cute and sweet. We walked about 25 minutes to our campsite which is right behind their school. The kids were so excited to show us their school.
By the time they dropped off our bags it was already dark so they left us to go home. There were 5 yellow tents in the field and 2 bigger ones a little higher up. Katie and I are sharing a tent so the first thing we did was settle in. There's barely enough room for us and our bags. Juan called us out to look the stars. It was amazing. Plus the moon was almost full so the whole valley was lit up and the glacier seemed to glow. We walked up to the food tents. Our cooks were preparing vegetable soup, trout, and potatoes for dinner. In the other tent, there was a table with 6 chairs around it and a candle on top. The cooks served us dinner, which was delicious. For dessert, they fried bananas in rum for us. After dinner, we got ready for bed and passed out.