#7 Living at someone else’s house

Meet Sarah & Paul as well as Ema & Louis

April / May 2022 - Pont Newyyd, Wales / Pisco Elqui, Chile - People / Places

---

It's Sunday morning 9am in Pisco Elqui. The sun is shining directly through the door of our room at "Hostal Doña Elqui" on to my bed. It's the perfect time to tell the story of „living at someone else's house".

Exactly three weeks back my husband Phil and I met on a Sunday morning in Cardiff, the capital of Wales at the train station. I had just finished my Vipassana meditation course before catching the train in Gloucester and Philipp came from London, where he landed the day before.

After a „we are both hungry, we need food right now“ lunch in Cardiff and an ice cream stop in Abergavenny, we made it to "the Ceyln". Sarah and Paul built the house on their family land back in 2007 and added three rooms in 2013 to host people like us in their home from them on.

The B&B directly became our home for the upcoming five nights.

Every morning we were greated by a wonderfull breakfast. After l0 days of Vegetarian meals during the meditation course, my stomach did struggle a bit with the full English breakfast. But who can say no to Paul's bacon and sausages?

Since we did take it slow in the mornings, we were often able to observe the routines happening in the house. Sheeps that needed attention, work in Cardiff calling or bad grey squirrels eating bird's eggs that needed some dealing with…

Fast forward to Chile.

Laura and I arrived in Pisco Elqui after Sunset on Friday evening two days ago. Via WhatsApp Ema & Louis confirmed a room for us for three night's at their place.

In the beginning I was a bit sceptical. The fridge wasn't working. We had to ask for towels and my tired body was just thinking, why is the place so empty?

The next day, my mood definitely improved after 10 hours of sleep, we met Ema & Louis who were absolutely lovely. We managed to find the plug to the fridge too and met the other visitors that emerged from their room around lunch time.

The sun was shining while we had breakfast in front of our room and afterwards Louis helped us to get some fire wood ready for our night sleeping under the stars and the lunar eclipse tonight as well as our trip next week to Parque National Nevado Tres Cruces, where we will for the first time sleep at around 4000m altitude.

I can't help but smile that living at other people's houses not only gives me an immediate sense of belonging to the places we visit especially when I sleep well.

It also proves the magic of Yuanfen. It makes meeting kind people along the journey really easy. Connections that were meant to happen no matter whether it’s deep down in Wales or in a pretty valley of Chile.

Places we stayed:

Celyn Farm Bed & Breakfast with Sarah & Paul: https://celynfarm.co.uk/

Hostal Doña Ema with Ema & Louis: https://www.hostalema.com