The true magic of life, indeed, is when you read messages of hope in a positive nature, and they make total sense! What caught my eyes today on the Power of Positivity page by Zig Ziglar was:
'Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your Altitude.'
In the high mountains of Machu Picchu, I felt this level of being one with nature.
I have just returned from Fabric, and it's after-party, just before midday on Sunday. Hala (sis) looked at me on her way to hit her pillow and said:
"Really, Sis, you're mad!"
And we both laughed. But I am in the mood to write now.
This will be my blog on a high note regarding my feelings now and the feelings I had throughout Hala and my visit to the marvellous country of Peru. Our three-week journey, however excited it had got me since the day I imagined being on those ruins of the Inkas in Machu Picchu quite some years ago, there was no clue as to what would be the outcome of such a far journey. If there is everything great about a country and its people, then Peru is undoubtedly number one out of all the countries visited in the past. Those numerous times I have been asked where my favourite country is, it never made sense because every place has its own special magic, but Peru is a mutual preference for both Hala and me.
'Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your Altitude.'
In the high mountains of Machu Picchu, I felt this level of being one with nature.
I have just returned from Fabric, and it's after-party, just before midday on Sunday. Hala (sis) looked at me on her way to hit her pillow and said:
"Really, Sis, you're mad!"
And we both laughed. But I am in the mood to write now.
This will be my blog on a high note regarding my feelings now and the feelings I had throughout Hala and my visit to the marvellous country of Peru. Our three-week journey, however excited it had got me since the day I imagined being on those ruins of the Inkas in Machu Picchu quite some years ago, there was no clue as to what would be the outcome of such a far journey. If there is everything great about a country and its people, then Peru is undoubtedly number one out of all the countries visited in the past. Those numerous times I have been asked where my favourite country is, it never made sense because every place has its own special magic, but Peru is a mutual preference for both Hala and me.
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| The Wonders of Machu Picchu |
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| Rainbows kept appearing everywhere. |
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| And the beauty of the Llama |
For me, it all began a few years ago in St Thomas when Hala had asked her friend Frieda to join us at Elliot's for ten days. Hala only told her friend she would have to share a room with 'her sister', me. As Hala had suspected, Frieda and I bonded like melted cheese (not sure one can say that! Oh well, I just did); we just laughed the whole time spent together. Her free spirit and the times she went on the beach looking for heart-shaped stones made me realise she was at peace with herself. Now, here she had invited Hala and me to stay at her home in Lima, where she lives with her beautiful daughter, about to get married to an equally wonderful being soon, her live-in help and excellent cook Betty, and not to forget her Great Dane called Kenya! Now, me and a 'big' dog in the same house? Who would have thought? The warmth of her home, filled with her energy, the garden where we played hours with her stones, collected from all around her country, all those heart-shaped gems which had come along her way and now helped create this garden of Eden. Oh! and the waterfall added to the serenity of the whole place.
From the moment we arrived in Lima, after a stop in Madrid, with the heat in the air and Frieda's warm hug awaiting us with that smile that makes the cloudiest of skies look deep blue, she welcomed us to her city. Not to forget, a joint rolled and ready for our first break of appreciating the beauty her town carried. I wrote to her upon return home that if any of us represented our countries like she does Peru, how wonderful a place the world would be. It proved in total clarity how having a good ruler, a caring man/woman in the power of a country, how wonderfully efficient a system can work, with people happy and satisfied without much greed involved. The number of times Hala and I were asked in Spanish where we come from and would be gratefully thanked for coming so long to visit them in Peru was countless. True magic, and we did not even try that liana called ayahuasca, of which a big hype was created, in taking some drink and throwing up to reach a certain level of being. Or something like that. That, we did not try.
The blogs to follow will be from the notes I took while going from Lima, the capital, to the beaches in Paracas, surrounded by birds and sea lions, the sand dunes, and the green mountains which so majestically surround the ruins of Machu Picchu and then came Lake Titicaca from Puno side, on the floating island made of straw; Uros and the sudden outbreak of carnivals in Cusco as well as Puno along our way. Was our energies that brought such magic to blossom every time we turned heads?
Here we were, three liberated women (that's us, did not mean the ladies in the photo above) who totally understood one another and had similarities beyond belief. Frieda, a little light-headed, was so similar to me and kept losing and finding ... Well, everything. Just like me. Chemistry does not necessarily have to be sexual; it can be the high level of understanding kind of chemistry which bonds us together. Hala and Frieda had met some twenty-eight years ago in London through a mutual friend who had told them separately they must meet as they resembled one another in more ways than one. After their wonderful friendship began those years ago, Hala went to Peru to visit Frieda three years later, where she explained how none of what she experienced now barely existed in any form on her last visit while Peru was recovering from acts of terrorism all around her previous visit. She always spoke emotionally of her trip to Peru; this time round, it was the most enlightening voyage of bonding on confirmation that wisdom and goodness in heart are indeed what the world needs...
'LOVE is the only answer'.
This is NO cliché; it's the truth.
From the moment we arrived in Lima, after a stop in Madrid, with the heat in the air and Frieda's warm hug awaiting us with that smile that makes the cloudiest of skies look deep blue, she welcomed us to her city. Not to forget, a joint rolled and ready for our first break of appreciating the beauty her town carried. I wrote to her upon return home that if any of us represented our countries like she does Peru, how wonderful a place the world would be. It proved in total clarity how having a good ruler, a caring man/woman in the power of a country, how wonderfully efficient a system can work, with people happy and satisfied without much greed involved. The number of times Hala and I were asked in Spanish where we come from and would be gratefully thanked for coming so long to visit them in Peru was countless. True magic, and we did not even try that liana called ayahuasca, of which a big hype was created, in taking some drink and throwing up to reach a certain level of being. Or something like that. That, we did not try.
The blogs to follow will be from the notes I took while going from Lima, the capital, to the beaches in Paracas, surrounded by birds and sea lions, the sand dunes, and the green mountains which so majestically surround the ruins of Machu Picchu and then came Lake Titicaca from Puno side, on the floating island made of straw; Uros and the sudden outbreak of carnivals in Cusco as well as Puno along our way. Was our energies that brought such magic to blossom every time we turned heads?
Here we were, three liberated women (that's us, did not mean the ladies in the photo above) who totally understood one another and had similarities beyond belief. Frieda, a little light-headed, was so similar to me and kept losing and finding ... Well, everything. Just like me. Chemistry does not necessarily have to be sexual; it can be the high level of understanding kind of chemistry which bonds us together. Hala and Frieda had met some twenty-eight years ago in London through a mutual friend who had told them separately they must meet as they resembled one another in more ways than one. After their wonderful friendship began those years ago, Hala went to Peru to visit Frieda three years later, where she explained how none of what she experienced now barely existed in any form on her last visit while Peru was recovering from acts of terrorism all around her previous visit. She always spoke emotionally of her trip to Peru; this time round, it was the most enlightening voyage of bonding on confirmation that wisdom and goodness in heart are indeed what the world needs...
'LOVE is the only answer'.
This is NO cliché; it's the truth.
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| This is how I feel about Peru. Loved Up! |
On our last day in Lima, I sat in Frieda's garden, so alive from every spot one's eyes gazed upon and cried deeply while meditating under the semi-shadowed large leaves of a tree. I wept because blessings were all around me, and my feelings of gratitude were like the writing on a wall, apparent in the smile on my face. I was missing Peru and Frieda's warmth and wisdom already. How wonderful it is to actually look around; all you want to see is the beauty of life in every way.
Don't sit and waste time watching too much TV. I haven't watched it in so long that even its noise in the background bothers me now. Go out and make your own TV, your personal reality TV show.
Now back, one night with Hala, we decided to go through the photos taken in Peru. My heart almost stopped when the Apple laptop counted the new files as 4,277 pictures! Sis kept smiling, with her eyes rolled up in the air and reminded me again:
"Sis, you really have no concept of anything below maximum?"
She knows me too well. I don't bother to think tiny. If you want to dream, make it big, for goodness sake. But then again, that is different from everyone's way. So, Hala and I sat awake until 3 am one evening, deleting 1,000 pictures taken from a bus, on a train, or in a taxi. It was a challenge alone to choose the pictures for the blogs to follow.
Something or someone, please take my fingers off this computer and direct me to bed... Please!
Everyone is asleep, and it is now 5:00 pm, and I still haven't slept. Madness, woman.
Don't sit and waste time watching too much TV. I haven't watched it in so long that even its noise in the background bothers me now. Go out and make your own TV, your personal reality TV show.
Now back, one night with Hala, we decided to go through the photos taken in Peru. My heart almost stopped when the Apple laptop counted the new files as 4,277 pictures! Sis kept smiling, with her eyes rolled up in the air and reminded me again:
"Sis, you really have no concept of anything below maximum?"
She knows me too well. I don't bother to think tiny. If you want to dream, make it big, for goodness sake. But then again, that is different from everyone's way. So, Hala and I sat awake until 3 am one evening, deleting 1,000 pictures taken from a bus, on a train, or in a taxi. It was a challenge alone to choose the pictures for the blogs to follow.
Something or someone, please take my fingers off this computer and direct me to bed... Please!
Everyone is asleep, and it is now 5:00 pm, and I still haven't slept. Madness, woman.
We went from Lima at sea level, up to 4,000 metres above, high up in the mountains, on Lake Titicaca, which is considered the highest lake in the world, where the fluffy clouds seemed hovering above our head and that if we jumped, perhaps it could be caught in our hands. The number of rainbows between the heavy downpours followed by deep blue skies and the sun with its rayons of gold touching every cell in our bodies. The ladies walking around in their traditional costumes of big, long skirts with knitted cardigans and how they wore those bowler types of hats on their heads without a pin attached resulted in the many pictures I could not resist taking. Those llamas were so mystical in the beauty they carried; their eyes looked as though they were made up with eyeliner and mascara while they gracefully chewed on the lawn. And... And those ruins made by the Incas were part of my learning of the spiritual world of wisdom through love and understanding. Our spiritual paths differ, and our wisdom lies in different areas.
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| Happy children playing on the beach with a foam cracked into 3 parts |
I should get some sleep. These were a few photos to begin with.
Love and Laughter to You.
Haldita
Haldita...
ReplyDeleteYou impressed everyone who met you in Peru...nothing goes one way dear, you only get what you gave, and you give A LOT!
I Feel very honored to count you as a friend.
All blessings for you
Frieda
Darling Friend and Sister
ReplyDeleteYour comment leaves me overwhelmed by awe and tears of gratitude.
No country has impressed me as much as Peru, of which you played a large part of representing the wonders of your birth place.
God Bless and can barely wait to spend more precious times with you.
All my Love
Haldita