One of the things I was really nervous about the whole trip was the home-stay. I was scared it would be awkward and hard to communicate with the families as my Spanish was still basically zero and they did not speak much English. Also, I thought I would be there on my own, which made it even scarier.
Day 1
After a 3-hour motorboat journey we arrived at Amantani Island. There were local kids running down the hill to welcome us, which was honestly so heartwarming. At the port, we split into pairs to go to our home-stays, this made me feel at ease, because it was good to be there with someone. Our host family took us to their house. It was really quaint. They had a cluster of small shed like buildings and a court yard which made up their home.
Our room was in the building in front. The kitchen/dining to the left and the family stayed in the building to the right in the picture. The bedroom was simple, but honestly we don't need much, just a bed and somewhere to put our bags.
The lunch was a simple meal, but it was so filling!
We then went back down to the village to play a football match with the locals. That was definitely not my forte! But the locals had such a good time. They were laughing and including us in all their games.
Once the game was over we helped our home-stay mum cook dinner. It was fun to cook some traditional Peruvian food. It was delicious. Our home stay family spoke little English, but did their best to communicate with us.. The mum did a great job taking us around and explaining places in the village to us. She showed us local plants which we can eat and took us to the top of the island. The view of the lake from there was fantastic, unfortunately there were a lot of clouds, so we couldn't see the sunset properly.
The bed was surprisingly comfortable and I slept really well. I'm sure the fact that we had such a long day helped.
Day 2
We woke up early and helped our home-stay mum cook breakfast. We ate breakfast with the whole family. We had a quick shower, as the bathroom had no running hot water, but we boiled water in the morning to shower and it was fine. We had to say a quick goodbye to the family as we ended up being quite late.
It was such a wonderful experience. The whole family were so beautiful and I'm so glad I was able to experience something so pure. We went through Edgar Adventure (https://www.edgaradventures.com/) to do this home-stay. I would recommend anyone can do this and should do this. Their life is simple but there is a lot of happiness and community that you rarely see in the western world.
Stay safe out there.
Love from,
Kesvi
Comments