I enjoyed spotting hummingbirds and finches with Carl, the father of the groom to be, who also knows his flowers and enjoyed the photos I'd taken yesterday - he identified the flowers by name, many of which I couldn't remember. He's a landscape architect from New Jersey, so none of the beauty here was lost on him; he proclaimed it "a little piece of paradise".
His group toured the ruins above the town until 2 p.m., and finally left for Aguas Calientes with hearty, fond farewells. Carl said, "Steve, I can't believe I've only known you for a day, you feel like such a good friend." I felt good - that's what I'm aiming for...that's my main role here, from what I understand. Makes sense: why have empty rooms during the low season when you can have someone on hand who makes people remember the lodge fondly and want to tell their friends what a positive experience they had here?
The water issue made it a busy week, but there are no guests for this evening, so basically our job now is just to be present, like night watchmen. Ruth went early to her English class and Carlos is recovering from dental work. I continue to read background info and history of the Incas. Gemma is checking up on emails and future reservations. Deb has been doing laundry - not that she's supposed to, just because she gets bored if she has nothing to get up and take care of - and reading Mark Adam's humorous and informative Turn Right at Machu Picchu. I finished the official guide book and now I'm well into Kim McQuarrie's The Last Days of the Incas, which is a thick tome, but well written and interesting. Next on the reading list is probably Warriors of the Clouds, which describes the intertribal warfare before the Spanish arrived.
On Saturday I met a six year old who came in with her mother to sell some milk to the kitchen. No mirror in her house, I'm sure. She had snot mixed with dirt dried over her face. She and her Mom smelled like the stable from across the room. It seems likely they sleep with their income producing cow, and walk about the village with their milk buckets and a measuring jug each morning. She was cute, vivacious kid, though - nothing a bath wouldn't fix. The poorer "Indios" tend to live with their livestock; perhaps the milk cow lives in her courtyard.
When you step into many homes, including the mother of our cook, it is very dark. There's no light inside even thought the village is electrified...that's a mystery, although I hear that electricity is expensive here. At first it is very quiet, and suddenly you begin to hear a high-pitched "cuy, cuy, cuy", very softly and first and then gradually getting louder, and finally the youngest and boldest of several dozen caramel and white guinea pigs begin to emerge from under the benches and tables and dash about the room excitedly. If you remain still, pretty soon it looks like a scene from the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
I got up at 6:30, which is only a little earlier than I wake up on most mornings. Gemma and Cesar got up just afterward and meant to leave at 7:30 for their shopping trip to Cuzco, but intended to connect with Ruth over some shopping questions before they left; by 8:30 she still hadn't arrived, so they left anyway, but they just missed her. Young Yonel and I held down the fort for the first hour, exchanged a few words of Spanglish, boiled the water and bought the milk, and Ruth and Gregorio arrived ten minutes after Gemma and Cesar left.
After studying Spanish and reading my background book for a while, I sorted the rack of brochures and business cards, as a starting point for Carlos' project. It was too messy and too full to be very useful - can't find info if there's too much of it and it isn't organised. Deb did laundry. With Pancha away, we'd hoped that Ruth would make us lunch, which is included in our Helpx deal, but instead she took money from the cash box to buy lunches for herself, Gregorio and Yonel, but didn't offer to buy ours (Carlos says she should have) so Deb and I walked down to the same restaurant and bought our lunches there out of our own pockets...pretty good $2 lunches, at a restaurant called Eva's. Then we explored the train station, researched costs and different ways to get to Machupicchu. We identified the location of most of the hotels, hostels, tour companies and restaurants that are in the B&B info rack that I'd sorted in the morning.
When we got back from lunch Ruth was gone and Carlos was here by himself. He'd just dropped in, said that he had a feeling he should, and found no-one manning the phone. Perhaps it should have been Deb and I, but no-one had explained that to us - no coverage schedule has been spelled out except one that has us hosting breakfasts. We assumed Ruth would still be there until we got back. Carlos' jaw still hurt from having his tooth pulled yesterday, so we relieved him to go back home to rest, and we became the only people in the building for a few more hours until Gemma and Cesar got back.
There were several phone calls that Deb fielded in Spanish with her better ear. They really need a much better phone here; Deb could hear the callers fairly well, but they had trouble hearing her, and she was speaking loudly and clearly - I could hear her from across the room. Just after six, I was about to deliver a suitcase to the plaza that was left here by yesterday's group, but Gemma and Cesar arrived back at that moment and he gave her a ride down to the plaza in the luggage cart - very cute. I took photos. Then the four of us had fun chatting and being the on duty evening and overnight watchmen again.
We expected to be alone on Sunday morning, but Karina, Gregorio and Yonel are all here, on a Sunday. There's nothing for Karina to do, which she had discovered when she dropped in to see Ruth on Saturday morning, but here she is. The door to Louise' ex's room off the kitchen miraculously opened and he emerged into the kitchen to make himself a small percolator of coffee, and he said "Buenos Dias" to us. Then he disappeared again without another word.
Gemma was surprised to hear that the milk lady had suddenly reappeared - apparently she ignored the lodge for a month after getting in a huff about the fact that they didn't want to buy any when she'd arrived one morning, and some suggestion that her milk had been watered down.
Gregorio told Gemma he's going to work today and take Monday off; actually there will be no paid staff on hand tomorrow, for various reasons. Ruth invited us to the peach festival in her town nearby, but ominously, she warned us to "bring a change of clothes". There was a crowning of this year's "Miss Peach" at noon, lots of food stalls (since we were on our own for lunch again today) and a chance to take photos - I took my yellow rainslicker, brushing aside Deb's warning that it would just make me a target and we'd get the camera wet. I was lucky enough to be right this time. No-one attacked me, and as it turned out, it began to rain so slickers and ponchos and umbrellas were in vogue. When we got back to the lodge, Carlos was in the middle of a board game with Cesar, Yonel and several members of Carlos' family: Cranium...in Spanish...I understood various words, but not enough to follow the clues or keep up with the banter, so I didn't volunteer to sit in.
At the end of the day, one guest couple were scheduled to arrive at midnight, so Cesar and I stayed up to meet them and help them find their room. They were two German guys, determined to sleep for four hours and then get up at 4 a.m. to hike to the train station and try to get early morning tickets to Machu Picchu. Cesar and I made them up an "early self-serve breakfast" with hard boiled eggs, cereal, fruit and tea - no bread, since they couldn't stay for the 7:30 breakfast time and we get our fresh bread rolls from the community oven around 5 a.m.
Like Gemma and Cesar, Deb and I have over-delivered on our Helpx hours in the past seven days; we hope it will be appreciated. We're sure glad they stayed on, though - as much as anything, for the sake of their company in the evenings and on days when none of the other staff are around. They were supposed to train us for two or three days and then pass the baton and move on to their next Helpx assignment, but that host fell through, and they're content to stay until the next one they have lined up in the middle of March, house-sitting a farm in Canoas, near Lima.
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