Roy and I finally found the perfect apartment and I didn’t realize how much more at home I would feel in Huancayo with our own little place. It’s cozier, literally warmer, and less dusty than the shared space where we lived before because it’s on the third floor and doesn’t face the main road. I caught another case of scabies when I arrived (my third time!), but the new, clean, mite-less place has been my salvation so far. In fact, I’ve been feeling much healthier these past few weeks and I think it has to do with the fact that I can now control what and when I eat.
The location is ideal — walking distance to the marketplace and only two blocks away from the main plaza. I like to think that I was being strategic in choosing a place that’s in the middle of all the action, but it was more like the apartment chose us. A perk about living in downtown is that you can leave your garbage out in the gutters early in the morning because government workers clean all the main streets before the day begins. Otherwise, I’d have to listen for the loud huayno music that the garbage truck plays when it’s passing by and up until now, I have never run out with my garbage in time!
Despite it being so central with the busy nightclubs only half a block away and combis passing by every few minutes during the day, we don’t really hear the horns honking or the people shouting. There’s a tavern right beside us that plays Latin American music until the early hours of the morning when the landlady’s rooster that lives on the roof just above us starts cock-a-doodle-doo-ing, but this noise isn’t so bothersome either. The apartment itself is part of a tiny residential area with at least twenty different neighbours – its main gate is only half a block away from one of the central streets in Huancayo. The neighbours all have their drama and everyone seems to know everyone’s business so I don’t know how successful we’ll be in keeping private, but we’re settling in and coping so far.
It feels like another new beginning.
Check out the new apartment and how my trusty stuffed penguin set the place up in stop-motion in the video below:
When was your last new beginning and what was it like?
