Schoolchildren with Teacher in Lima’s Plaza de Armas
It is now almost two months since I’ve returned from Peru, and it’s beginning to seem as if it all happened years ago. When you replace one present with another, it becomes part of an ever-diminishing past. Well, I have no intention of jettisoning some beautiful memories, such as:
- Seeing Peruvian schoolchildren, such as the ones above in front on Lima’s Palacio de Gobierno. (You can see the security personnel in the background.) Kids always make me feel good about the future, even if I don’t have any of my own.
- Being awestruck by the Volcano Sabancaya in eruption from Colca Canyon.
- Reliving my past by visiting the most ornate and gorgeous Catholic Churches I have ever seen.
- Experiencing heartfelt gratitude in Puno when I bought a handmade alpaca scarf from an old Aymara woman.
- Eating delicious wor won ton soup at a Peruvian Chinese restaurant, or chifa, on a cold day.
- Interacting with the Peruvian people in my broken Spanish, and finding it no bar to communicating with them.
- Feeling that the Inca moment in history is still going on, especially in the Sacred Valley.
Because today is Thanksgiving, I will give thanks for Peru and for all the other wonderful places I have seen, all the kind people I have met, and that I still have it in me to want more.
Tarnmoor 
Many thanks for a great article, it was very interesting and informative.