It was cloudy when we arrived. I was going to be one of the first 400 daily visitors who are permitted to climb Huayna Picchu, at the north end of the high alpine saddle that Machu Picchu is built on, but it was a little daunting - it takes anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes depending on how busy the path is (you have to wait for the person in front of you) and how fit you are - and I was concerned about getting all the way up and not able to get my shot of the ruins through the cloud. Deb wouldn't have gone on that climb with me anyway, and I was secretly relieved at not having to call my own bluff, so we hiked to the Inca drawbridge instead, which not many visitors do (the guides won't take you there), and took spectacular photos.
I normally take 50 or 60 photos before editing them into a slideshow; on rare occasion, over a hundred. This time I took 244, and that was just in the morning, until heavy rain started around 1 p.m. Then I spent two days editing them and selecting which ones to put into a slideshow that'll be meaningful to someone who hasn't been to the site or absorbed enough Incan history to appreciate what they're looking at. There are three photo albums: Getting to Machu Picchu, The Royal Retreat of Machu Picchu, and the third one is about the Inca drawbridge, the llamas of Machu Picchu, and a few final amusements.
We met some lodge guests at the site, Jeff and Rita, a young Chinese couple from Shanghai. Jeff's a young lawyer with U.S. citizenship who's lived in New York since he was six. He works for a law firm based in Miami which has a Shanghai office that does arbitration work, mostly in Hong Kong. Rita is Shanghai Chinese, works in Marketing for the same company, and speaks excellent English and even better Spanish - she got a degree in Spanish at university. They were in Lima for a conference, trying to develop relationships with Peruvian law firms, and decided to take the opportunity to see Machu Picchu. We spent the afternoon together and then had dinner and walked home together. They are a lovely couple, and we now have a contact in Shanghai. We invited them to visit us in Toronto if they ever get the chance.
After all that hiking and an eighteen hour day, we slept heavily back at the lodge, but I woke up at 6:20 on Friday morning, worried about the guests who would need breakfast and whether the staff would be late. I showered and walked out into the kitchen just after seven, and miracle of miracles, both Ruth and Gregorio were there and already working! I helped with breakfast and with guest questions, and Deb spent the morning going through reservations with Ruth, helping her compose replies in English. In the afternoon she did laundry and then spent many more hours checking reservation details and emails on the computer. She found quite a few oversights that she followed up on with further emails to prevent future catastrophes. She stayed pretty busy all day. Ruth left at 1 p.m. declaring that she has an English exam in the afternoon.
I met new guests who arrived early after having spent two days at Machu Picchu. They were going to spend the day sightseeing in Ollantaytambo, and sleep here at the lodge for one night. I went over the map with them describing what they could see and do, sent them on their way with a sense of confidence and direction, and then I put my brochure rack back together. Gregorio had followed up my varnishing job with two more coats to darken it, and it looks pretty good. Still, after all that, at nine in the evening Carlos asked Deb and I to set up the self-serve early breakfast, which is actually his job before he leaves for the day. Gemma and Cesar were a bit steamed that he asked us to do it, because they have been doing that for him for two months now and they know he should be doing it.
Gemma is pissed off at Kim. We met Kim at Puka Rumi last night when we were there for dinner - she was already famous to us when we first arrived, for coming in drunk and leaving all her taps on when she discovered that there was no water for her shower. When the water came on the following day her shower emptied the tank again - the tank that we had laboriously hand-filled for most of a day with rainwater and jerry cans brought over from Pancha's house - before we realized what had happened. Kim was buying dinner for a male friend - not a regular; the lodge staff say she doesn't have a regular guy and they haven't seen this one before - and said she planned to stay at the lodge for the next two nights. "I'm embarrassed to show my face there after the water incident," she said...but she didn't seem very embarrassed.
She is a friend of Louise's, runs some sort of charity foundation, she says, and also teaches yoga and works in the reception of a hotel in Cusco now, apparently. She stays at the lodge for free sometimes when the lodge isn't full, but Gemma finds her insincere and annoying. In the wee hours, Kim and her male friend began enjoying a banging session that included loud screams from Kim - I'm reminded of a scene from "Porky's", I think it was, where a girl is likened to a collie dog because of the howls she emits in the throes of passion. Gemma was woken up, and apart from being disgusted, she became concerned about the other guests on her floor. After enduring the noise for a few moments, she put on her orange construction boots and stomped loudly on the floor above Kim's ceiling!
Kim didn't mention anything the next day, and didn't apologise. She breezed into the kitchen with her male friend, well after breakfast had been served and cleared away. She didn't deign to introduce him to the rest of us, but he has a gigolo musician look to him, I've gotta say, and he didn't step forward with his hand out to introduce himself, either.
"I think it's time for breakfast," Kim said, and they proceeded to help themselves to eggs and other breakfast items, creating new dishes which they left for someone else to wash. There was steam coming from Gemma's ears, and she and Cesar left the kitchen and sat in the dining room so they didn't have to be in the same room with her. "She can buy her boyfriend dinner at the best restaurant in Ollantay," Gemma said, "but she can't pay anything for bringing her friend here and both of them eating Louise' food!" The rest of the staff are awkward around Kim and laugh at her behind her back; even Deb can't look her in the eye, now.
Deb was trying to compose email responses to reservation inquiries on a Spanish keyboard. "I can't find the colon," she fretted. "Hmm...well, there's only one solution," I had to suggest. "You'll have to perform a colonoscopy."
Never a dull moment in your neck of the woods eh? Interesting read. Always glad to read your blog, and see what you have been up to.
ReplyDeleteStay well, Love, M.