10/5/25 First night in Peru

I'm currently staying at my Airbnb — the kind where you share the space with the host.

There's a dog in the house named Quero. He's a bit slow to warm up, but calm and gentle.

I don't know exactly why, but when I first arrived, I felt like I was somehow intruding into someone else's space.

But the truth is — I’m not.

I live here too.

I pay rent, I have a key.

I have the right to breathe, to space out, to eat, to write, to shower, to exist.

And yet I noticed…My first instinct wasn’t to relax — it was to quietly say,“I’m sorry.”

I’ve been saying this line for so many years.

As a child, it was:"I'm sorry I was too loud.""I'm sorry I cried.""I'm sorry I didn’t know the answer."

And as I grew older, it turned into:"I'm sorry I need help.""I'm sorry I’m not perfect.""I'm sorry I didn’t understand you right away."

Sometimes, I’d start apologizing before I even did anything.

But this time, I want to practice something new.

I don’t want to apologize anymore — not for simply being.

I’m sitting in the living room, typing — and honestly, I’m about to fall asleep at the keyboard. My body is tired, my eyes heavy, but still, I wanted to write my emotions down.

I’m not ready to write about Argentina yet.

That story is too big, too full — I want to wait until I’ve settled into Cusco, until my heart is truly still, or when I am handling the altitude.

But what I can say is — in that moment when the plane lifted off, my heart was full.

Not empty.

Not escaping.

Just surrounded by love and growth.

That is my Argentina.

My forever second homeland.

Now, I want to write down how it feels to be in Peru on my first night.

The taxi drivers here seem calm and composed — not aggressive, not impatient.

But you can tell they’re purposeful (I went with uber, and they are nice).

They know where they’re going, what they’re doing.

I have a bit of a headache — maybe it’s dehydration, or maybe I’m just really tired. I changed into what I call my “pajamas” — really just two pieces of clothing I love — and curled up on the couch to write.The host’s dog occasionally comes over and gently licks my hand.

It’s soft, unintrusive.

I’m so thirsty.

The airplane air was dry and cold — it always drains the body.

At some point during the flight, I put on the eye mask Vira gave me. It helped A LOT.

My body craves new food, and my heart craves something new.

New tastes, new experiences.

I wandered down a random street and stepped into a chifa restaurant.

Chifa is Peru’s Chinese fusion cuisine — born from early Chinese immigrants who made this place home, blending local ingredients, spices, and traditions into something entirely new: Peruvian Chinese food.

It was a simple, homey place — nothing fancy in the decoration.

I ordered a curry and a wonton soup.

The curry was... interesting.

Not Japanese, not Indian, not Thai.

But something else — slightly sweet, with a rich aroma of scallions.

A kind of Peruvian version of curry, I suppose.

There was a bit of ají in it too — that unique Peruvian chili.

I didn’t have internet on my phone, and honestly, many of the dish names on the menu meant nothing to me.

Some I could half-guess, others were complete mysteries.

Looking at these unfamiliar words, I was suddenly reminded of Egypt —

where I had to rely entirely on a translation app to read Arabic menus.

But those translations? Completely illogical.

Once, I remember, a dish came up as “Eggplant crying in oil.”

I used to stare blankly at the menu for minutes, then pick something at random — and surprisingly, most of the time, the food turned out to be delicious.

Maybe because I had no expectations.

Maybe because I was craving surprise.

Now, here in Peru, I find myself back in that same state:

no control, no predictions — just trusting the moment, and my appetite.

Scallions, by the way, are happiness.

Even the simplest bowl of noodles — as long as it has scallions — feels like a warm, gentle hug.

I also ordered fried rice.

Normally I don’t — fried rice never excites me.

But this one… was unexpectedly good.

The rice had bite, and flavor, and a satisfying texture.

I had assumed Peru was mostly about potatoes, corn, quinoa — that kind of carb.

Turns out, I really underestimated Peruvian rice.

It’s short-grain, slightly sticky — kind of like the rice from northeast China.

Solid, chewy, aromatic.

Not bad at all.

And the thing is, I’m not even someone who craves rice.

I once went to a gathering with friends from different continents, and I was the only one without a rice cooker at home.

My usual carbs are roasted pumpkin, potatoes, whole-grain wraps, or some fresh pasta from the corner store.

If I ever eat rice, it’s mixed with beans and frozen into portions for later — not something I really long for.

But tonight was different.

I devoured that bowl like my body had been missing it all along.

I was feeding myself.

My body was hungry for food,

just like my spirit is hungry for new adventures, new culture, new flavors.

Strangely, I don’t feel homesick.

Not in the usual sense — not the longing for a particular place.

It’s something deeper, something harder to name.

Since I was a child, I’ve always woken up with this quiet, aching sense of emptiness.

A kind of sadness that had no clear reason, no specific cause.

It was just... there — every morning.

Rising with me.

Like a tide of heaviness that flooded my chest before the day even began.

Sometimes I’d think, why do I have to wake up again?

That feeling stayed with me for over two decades.

It became the way I entered each day.

But something shifted during my years in Argentina.

The feeling didn’t disappear overnight,

but it stopped overwhelming me.

Stopped crashing over me the moment I opened my eyes.

At some point,

mornings became just that — mornings.

No longer something to survive.

I could get up, stretch, brush my teeth, make breakfast —

without having to fight my way through a fog of pain first.

This change isn’t because of Peru.

It’s because I have changed.

It was Argentina —

those years, those lifestyles, those people —

that gently pulled me out of the version of myself who woke up every day already drowning.

Now, I wake up and... I’m okay.

And that, to me, is not a small thing at all.

I already feel like I can find the cafés I’ll love —

both the polished ones and the local ones.

I’ll find good food.

I’ll map out my next steps.

I’ll go for runs (though I’ve been too tired lately to start).

I’ll explore museums.

It just feels… comfortable. Settled. In sync with myself.

This trip feels like a different kind of journey.

I’m more aware of my body, my emotions, my surroundings.

I no longer feel the urge to immediately connect — with a friend, a romance, anyone.

I’m good on my own.

And if new connections happen, that’s beautiful too.

But I no longer use them as a measure of whether a trip is “successful.”

I’m honestly a bit exhausted.

Not because I’ve done too much.

Not because I haven’t slept — I’ve been getting hours of sleep on the flight.

But still, my eyes are swollen, and my body feels worn out.

Maybe it’s because I cried nearly every day during my last two weeks in Buenos Aires.

Everything was so emotionally intense — endings, beginnings, all tangled up.

Right now, all I want is to do a few simple things:

Eat. Shower. Sleep.

zzzz…