Crazy lodge details; sweat lodge ceremony; Deb's attempt to reach Patacancha

    These are photos of the diversion Deb experienced trying to get to Patacancha, to the weaver's village and to Alan's Alma Foundation trout farm.

    On Saturday I got up at six to put on the coffee and squeeze fresh orange juice.  I got two guests breakfasted and off on their early train to Machu Picchu, then cleared their tables and began the regular breakfast for Dick, Christine and Cecilia. 

    Carlos slept over in the lodge last night, and came into the lobby early to observe Ruth arriving at 7:40 (early, for her!), while Christine was already downstairs waiting for her breakfast; Gregorio, who usually does the eggs for the guests, arrived a few minutes later, so I did the egg orders too. Carlos isn't pleased, he's pacing and trying to figure out what he can do about it. The soup ought to be hitting the fan right about now, but no one has any actual "managerial authority", so I'm guessing that this sort of behaviour has been going on for so long that no-one will really be able to do anything about it until Louise shows up...if then. One positive thing about Carlos, though: he appreciates an effort to go the extra mile, and makes a point of thanking you.

    Pancha was actually a half-hour early, however. And Christine had been up quite early, running around with her binoculars spotting birds. I was reminded of how badly the lodge needs a comprehensive Audubon Peruvian bird book, and stakes beside the flowers in the garden to identify them to older guests who are delighted by that sort of thing. Keeping an extra pair of birding binoculars would also be smart - many of the older, more well-off, often retired guests arrive knowing that Peru is second only to Colombia in having more species of birds - over 1800 species - and more colourful birds, than any other country in the world.  They really want to see those birds when they've travelled so far to see them and are escaping winter at home. Having everything on hand that they need to spot and identify some of those birds right here at the lodge would keep some of them for an extra night, perhaps as much as an astronomy tour would, and would result in word of mouth advertising and recommendations for the lodge.

    After doing a four hour breakfast shift, I read for the rest of the morning, napped after lunch, and then hiked around the village looking for fresh corners of interest for guests, in addition to walking down to the market to help Gemma and Cesar carry the shopping - which Ruth and Pancha should have done during their morning shift, having had only one room to clean today, but they didn't. I welcomed our five guests back from Machu Picchu and Ollantaytambo archaelogical site, served them beer.  I've sold ten beer in three days; sometimes all you have to do is offer, i.e. plant the thought in their heads.  I spent a couple of hours giving them a chance to express their excitement to someone, show the photos they took, and discuss Incan history and architecture. A pleasant day, for them and for me.

    Sunday morning was a little crazy.  Dick, Christine and Cecilia went to mass promptly at 7 a.m. - a time which was, as all times Peruvian, only a suggestion, even for the priest. While we were waiting for them to return for breakfast, an older blonde lady from Texas breezed into the lodge at 8:10 a.m. asking for Arturo, Louise's ex who still lives in a room off the kitchen. He'd had a busy night - we'd heard a girlfriend giggling loudly from behind the door to his room .  He wasn't ready to get out of bed, even to answer our knock. The lady turned out to be a photographer who'd had an 8 a.m. appointment with him, and she was pissed. "They tell us to wait 15 minutes for a Ph.D.,", she said, "and these guys certainly aren't Ph.D.'s!" Then she turned on her heel and stormed back out of the lodge. Still, she showed up later that evening to participate in his sweat lodge ceremony, so I guess she wasn't that furious after all; or he made a charming apology, which seems equally likely.

    Dick, Christine and Cecilia made it back from mass by 8:40 for breakfast, almost an hour later than they'd expected.  We served up a good breakfast.  Poor Ronny grabbed their luggage and waited for them in the plaza. He had a 9 a.m. appointment to drive them to Cusco, and if he parks in the plaza for more than 15 minutes he'll get ticketed.

    Right after breakfast, Cecilia said her goodbyes and raced to the plaza to say goodbye to other friends without checking to see if her account was cleared. Dick and Christine stepped forward to pay for their final charges according to the accounts book, which Ruth had written up in a very confusing fashion.  She was away, and hadn't left any notes to help with final check-out.  Gemma thought Cecilia had run away without paying for her final night. Dick volunteered to pay for Cecilia, but Cecilia called from the taxi later to say that she had paid in full, and had also paid half of the room for Dick and Christine on their first night. So it looks as if they've overpaid; but there is another wrinkle: Cecilia had asked for fresh towels on her second and third night, and hadn't turned in the used ones.  When Karina (the girl who only comes in on Sundays) went into her room right after breakfast to collect the linen, all five towels were gone! Who packs wet hotel towels in their luggage? So bizarre...

    We helped with breakfast, serving and hosting, and then tried to help Gemma sort out the Strasser accounts by feeding her what we knew of the charges that should have been applied and discussing what a proper accounting system would look like.

    The good news (for us, not for Louise) is that we had no guests for two nights. Deb went to Patacancha to take photos of the weaving, and Alan Harman has invited us to have a look at the trout farm there which is one of his Alma Foundation's projects.  It had been threatened by the recent flooding. There was only room for one more in the car, so I volunteered to stay home and ask Deb to photograph the trout farm, since she has a great interest in the weaving.

    As it turned out, they couldn't get through to Patacancha by car.  

    Julia of the Kiya Survivors Rainbow Centre brought us her books and receipts to audit, and a week later we went on a field trip to view another part of their operation. We got our Machu Picchu train tickets. An odd wrinkle: you can reserve online for Machu Picchu entry tickets on a Sunday, but then you have six hours to show up at the bank (and there's no branch in Ollantaytambo) to pay for them, or you lose them - but the banks are not open on Sunday! You can't simply pay online and print out your tickets. So we had to reserve again on Monday in order to give Carlos the number he needs to stop at the Banco Nacional in Urubamba on his way to work tomorrow, in order to have the tickets in our hot little hands well before Thursday. What a crazy system.

    We put some dining room tables and chairs out on the lawn and had beef ribs cooked in the "horno", the big pizza oven looking thing in the reception area.  We could hardly chew them - what is it with the shoe leather that passes for beef in S. America?  For side dishes we had rice, salad, guacamole, choclo (very large kernel, starchy corn on the cob), and homemade lemonade. And Cusquena blond beer, which is only costing me $1 a bottle at the lodge's wholesale price. We decided to chip in on a bottle of rum and lemon-lime pop for the evening, and we spent more time dealing with messed up accounts.  I did online research into simple accounting systems that might be suitable for small B&B's, while Deb finished the laundry that Karina had started.

    As we were discussing accounting and I was just wondering whether our bandwidth would allow me to Skype Mom, Arturo burst in completely out of the blue and invited us to join his sweat lodge ceremony.  It seems that he didn't have enough paying customers to create a large enough circle, and wanted the event to look as properly attended as possible. No mescaline or peyote involved, much to Gemma's disappointment and Deborah's relief, but I did endure a traditional N. American campfire/sauna, and got a good sweat on for two hours without even having to exercise. 

    The only difference between this expereince and a cedar sauna in Toronto was the guy banging a drum in pitch darkness over your head, singing traditional songs and chants, and invoking mother earth and the ancestors. None of it seemed terribly Peruvian, let alone Incan, except that the prayers were in Spanish and the singing was Quechuan (which is a vocabulary well-rounded out with Spanish words as well). Still, there's lots of New Age Tibetan and Ayurvedic stuff happening here, so why not a N. American "spiritual" sweat lodge ceremony?

    Every so often the flap would open and glowing red rocks from the fire would slide in on a shovel and be added to the pit in the centre. Water was periodically tossed onto the rocks, and sometimes thrown around at the circle of guests - imagine cold water hitting your chest in pitch black, unannounced.  It was refreshing, but still a shock, even the second and third time. The hardest part was sitting cross-legged on leafy sticks for two hours, hunched over so that my back and head would fit the contours of the sapling and blanket construction. Arturo encouraged us to sing, but Deb could only think of campfire songs in English - My Grandfather's Clock, or On Ilkley Moor Bar T'at - which would have fallen as flat as my ability to participate in Spanish ones; a few people did finally engage in some tepid response singing after more than two hours had passed and I had already decided I'd had enough and removed myself to enjoy the remains of the fire outside, which was much more pleasant.

    Sitting in a pitch black circular tent with total strangers, some English, some Spanish, makes it a little hard to open up.  It's not a very social setting, I'm afraid, in spite of Arturo's exhorting that this was to be an experience of brotherhood and sisterhood and opening your heart and all that. European tourists in Canada are absolutely thrilled with the traditional campfire experience, including weiners, "s'mores", hot chocolate and other beverages, ghost stories, jokes and harmony singing of traditional campfire songs; somehow the sweat lodge experience doesn't hold up in comparison. Maybe with "medicinal enhancement", it might. 

    As I've mentioned before, I'd love to run a small Rocky Mountain tourist lodge with traditional campfires and music, lendable instruments on the walls, and a menu of the most amusingly traditional menu items: Peter's River Chili, hash, pancakes, baked beans with ham in molasses, cook-your-own hot dogs on a stick over the fire, and so many more. With mountain hikes and trail rides, horseshoes and other daytime activities that European visitors never get to experience, it would be quite a happy place.

    On Monday we had light rain, but I began the day by washing a kitchen full of dishes, Deb did the fresh bread run, and when the others emerged we had breakfast. Deb left in the car for Patacancha with instructions to take photos of the trout farm and chat with anyone who happened to be around. They were to leave at 8, so we got up early to be ready, but Ruth, as usual, didn't arrive until 8 (and brought Samir), and they actually didn't get out the door until 9. That's 8, Peruvian time.  Mark Adams, the author of Turn Right At Machu Picchu, has a Peruvian wife and in-laws. He tells several amusing stories that illustrate their sense of punctuality, including a Peruvian friend who is an executive at a major corporation and was to be married at 4 p.m. in Lima. He told his own mother the ceremony would happen at noon...she came puffing into the church, red-faced, at ten to four - and was on time for the ceremony!

    Gregorio also didn't come in until 8, but apparently he has nothing to do today - no guest breakfasts, and it's raining, so it is not a day for a gardener or for varnishing (although the dining room floor certainly did need refinishing). He and I held down the fort alone. He surfed the net all morning, doing Facebook and whatever other activities interest him while I write my diary.  He's my back-up in case I can't handle a phone enquiry in rapid-fire Spanish. When the rain stops, I hoped to finally varnish my new brochure rack, which Gregorio had said he'd do for me on Friday while he had the varnish brush in his hand doing other woodwork around the lodge exterior, but he didn't.  When we asked him about doing it a few days later he said he'd be too busy.  "Busy" is defined as sitting in front of the computer, snacking and chatting with a friend who has dropped in to visit. I generally admire Gregorio's work ethic, but not that morning; I came travelling with one backpack, and that didn't include a set of clothing I can get droplets of varnish on. 

    They told me Pancha wouldn't come in at all, but she jogged in at exactly 10 (shift starts at 9!) and immediately left again, to do some fast shopping.  I had done a lot of her work already, sweeping and washing up. By 10:35 she was off again, at a run, to a meeting of some sort at the municipality offices. I read and studied Spanish most of the day, and manned the reception, and of course any English enquiries, until Carlos returned at 2.  Carlos was usually punctual.

    Deb was back by noon. They couldn't get through to Patacancha - too much mud on the road for driving or even walking. She brought me some photos which I added to the slideshow. I varnished my own brochure rack.  After we took him to lunch and walked back, Gregorio disappeared for the rest of the day even though the sun had come out! He stayed only long enough to provide me with some varnish but no thinner to wipe the darn stuff off my fingers when I was done. Gemma suggests that he was depressed and sometimes just goes off somewhere and sits. His mother died this past December.

    Carlos asked me to try to find some Cusco hotels and tour agents for him to follow up on and make connections with, but I can't figure out what he's doing with his own paid time today.  As far as I know, he only had one email to answer, and then had to review the reservations books since December, at Louise' request. This marketing research is something he ought to have been doing for himself, quite frankly.  He was the only one who really knew what he was looking for, and which businesses he'd already contacted. He left at 7 p.m. because "there are no guests in the lodge", but he expected us to cover the final two hours of his shift that he was getting paid for, which was only a seven hour shift to begin with, as well as doing his marketing research for him. The staff were all left with strict instructions not to take advantage of the presence of Helpx volunteers. I had already done more than my requisite hours cleaning, varnishing and minding the shop until he got back.  I considered that maybe I'd do some research for him as part of the next day's shift assignment. Maybe.

    Gemma and Cesar, used to Spanish wages, were offered jobs in a local bakery by a friend they'd made since they got here...at one Euro an hour. That's about $1.30/hr. That's not even the average minimum wage in Peru, and they can sell in fluent Spanish and English, as well as cook and bake, and keep cash and accounts professionally, without mistakes. For shame...that's the Italian baker I mentioned in a previous diary entry, with several ventures on the go, who charges $2.50 a slice for pan borracho. He'd hoped to take advantage of a young travelling couple, knowing that they were running out of cash. They refused, of course. By mid-March they'd be off to the coast of Ecuador to work two hours a day farm-sitting for a couple of weeks, and then visit Colombia before heading home to Spain and hopefully a job in France that pays enough for them to save toward their next trip - possibly the Philippines, next winter. 

    On Tuesday Ruth arrived at 8 a.m., only an hour late. The power went out at 9:30 and was out until after four. I took my brochure rack apart and added little wood strips at the back of each shelf so that no-one would push the bottoms of the business cards and brochures and make them fall down behind the shelf. The staff were suddenly in high gear: Louise would return on Friday, so they were suddenly cleaning the kitchen, the windows in the reception, and cleaning out the frig. After I washed Pancha's load of dishes for her - and she said "thank you"! - we spent the afternoon moving furniture around in the reception, trying to dream up a better arrangement.  After hours of discussion we couldn't find anything better than we'd had already, except that I'd moved my new brochure rack to the opposite wall. Hmmph.  What a waste of time.

    On Wednesday Gemma talked a local artist into letting us hang her paintings on the lodge walls, with tags that show the name and price. One has been sold. It's a great way to decorate a B&B or a lodge. Last night we walked down and selected a new one that will grace a space we've created on the wall. It looks great - a cheerful, colourful painting of Quechua women in the flower market. I think I'll put a photo of it in my slideshow. Unfortunately, it looks so great that I think it'll sell quickly. Good for the artist, not so much for the lodge.

    Ruth (in at 8, again) had several confusing emails from English speaking clients, including one who was arriving at the Cusco airport in an hour. The driver Ronny was already at the airport waiting for him, and learned he had to wait another hour. Deb and I figured out the email, looked at the AA site to find the correct arrival time, and helped Ruth compose email replies in English that make sense.  Her English is about as good as my Spanish, woefully short of begin able to correspond, although I use Google Translate as a starting point for my attempts. I was reminded of how critical English speaking Helpx volunteers are to the lodge, where precise communication of travel details can make or break a trip.  In spite of the template email replies they have in folders on the computer, there is always some new wrinkle that just isn't covered by a cookie-cutter response.  Even Carlos' templates are sometimes poorly constructed in writing, although his spoken English is fairly good. Deb spent an hour constructing a new template response for Ruth, related to a hurried purchase of tickets to Machu Picchu, for which they need to receive money in advance from the client. The whole exercise is an impromptu English lesson as well, as Ruth typed out and learned to spell all the words Deb dictated to her.

    Ruth left even before lunch, ostensibly to pay an electric bill (how long could that take?) in Urubamba. Work continued on my brochure rack, which had its third coat of varnish. We expected Julia from Kiya Survivors at 11 a.m. and she finally showed up at 1 p.m. just as lunch was being served, so after a quick bite, we spent a couple of hours verifying receipts and checking balances. She turned out to be a bright, highly organized young graduate from Vancouver who grew up in Edmonton, so it wasn't the same as the accounting we reviewed in Malingua Pamba, but we still managed to find a half-dozen discrepancies which she went away to correct. She intended to take us to one of her projects next week, and give us the corrected copy to deliver to Alan Harman upon our return to Toronto.

    For the rest of the day we met the incoming guests and explained everything we'd learned that would be helpful to them about booking Machu Picchu, and other local attractions they can choose from. One group of three was there for five days...doin' it right!

    My morning was brightened by discovering and reading the reference that Pam Gilbert left for us on the Helpx site:

    "Steve and Deborah are an awesome duo! We have never had such an incredible pair and SO impactful. They transcribed and translated Water Board meeting notes for our Engineers Without Borders-Denver Chapter and Rotarian Project(s); inaugurated duo lingo.com; provided photo documentation of things needing attention which we were able to turn to our advantage; researched and reported on all of my requests; and positively impacted and improved our educational goals. They are worth their weight in gold! Sincerely, pam CEO/Founder".

Cool, eh?

Next entry: Machu Picchu, a peak experience

Trivial lodge and staff details; some weirdness; and a trip to Urubamba

    We went to the Urubamba market. This diary entry is long, and includes thoughts and events of an entire week.

    Monday was a quiet day. We cleaned up after the early morning self-serve breakfast, and had our own breakfast. After sweeping up a bit, we went for a walk looking for lumber stores. Gregorio had said there were two, but no-one else in town could point them out.  We heard about two other ones, including a carpenter who is supposed to be somewhere in our street, but neither of those seemed to exist either. I was keen to create a second rack for the extra brochures and business cards, one that I could order into more logical and useful categories, but I wasn't keen to try to rip, plane and sand a board into strips in order to make it, especially with Gregorio's hand tools, a low workbench and no clamps. Carlos wanted to send me to Urubamba, where we might find the wood we're looking for. 

    We also talked about a hot water systems expert to invite to the lodge, and about a solar preheater which would make use of the extra third "emergency" tank, a thermostat to keep guests from scalding themselves while blinded by soap and unable to find the cold water tap, and a regulator to distribute the hot water equally throughout the building so one can choose to have a low-flow shower without it going cold on you (which would also save a lot of electricity for the pump, and propane). We also talked about a faster internet solution than the small router and Claro rocket stick that brings in their internet signal.

    Since we couldn't find the pre-cut lumber - or any lumber store, for that matter - in Ollantaytambo, we settled for expensive coffee and slices of "pan borracho" - the baker uses his old chocolate bread, soaks it in wine and layers it in chocolate pudding. It's a cheap invention, he saves the unsold product and turns it into something he sells for much more; at $2.50 a slice (fresh hot buns in the morning are only 5 for a sol, or 8 cents each), it didn't jibe well with my Scottish nature, but it was a treat, and we treated Gemma as well.

    I've tried two kinds of local "beer" and wine, one made from a mix of strawberries and corn and the other from "Inca berry", which is like a sweet dark blueberry with tiny seeds. The first wasn't very good, the second way too sweet, and neither of them very alcoholic. The third kind, "chicha", is made from yellow corn.  It is familiar to those of us who grew up in Africa where they make and drink maize beer everywhere. However, I can see a business opportunity for a great tourist wine called "Inca Berry Wine". There's a shed at the foot of the garden here that could be a winery. A spare room in the lodge could be organized as a nice gift shop, selling local crafts, "Inca Berry Wine" and "Inca Berry Jam" - the name alone is an instant seller.

    The lodge could be making and selling their own soaps, as well - or look into providing liquid soap dispensers. They cut down used bars and put them back in the rooms, and are very sparing with what they provide; it looks tacky. Better to melt down the used bars if you're going to reuse them, and put them into an Apu Lodge mold, which looks much classier, and you can box and sell extra bars in your gift shop as souvenirs with various other themes. Hummingbird feeders on the back wall for guests to pre-focus their cameras on could lead to a hummingbird motif on some of the soaps as well.

    I never run out of ideas...

    On Monday evening we had a "pisco sour" workshop (Cesar went out and brought back his own bottle of Pisco to use for that), learning to make them, and then sample them...several glasses each, mostly with lime and egg white, but we experimented with the slightly sour breakfast oranges as well.  Gemma didn't emerge from her room until 1:15 on Tuesday. It was raining on and off. Deb did a laundry, and then we just chilled and read books, expecting some guests to arrive at 4 p.m.

    We spent a couple of afternoon hours creating special posters in English and Spanish (I felt very useful, all of a sudden, since I'm good at poster ad copy) to try drawing customers from the train station and various locations in the plaza; Carlos will run them past Louise by email before we post them as a ten day trial.

    Our guests arrived, a Peruvian family of four. The husband was pleased to practise his English with us. They wanted a pizza. The one place that delivers is closed on Tuesdays; the next was "too busy" to make one (during low season?); the third is "moving". Finally Carlos finds one who agrees to make the pizza and even to deliver it; it finally arrives, after a few additional phone calls, 45 minutes late - and there's no "30 minutes or it's free" guarantee here!

    Carlos also discovered that the driver who is supposed to pick up a difficult booking tomorrow, a slightly paranoid guest who asked for confirmation details several times, did not receive a text message from Ruth, which is the normal procedure, to confirm her arrival time and flight number. He's thanking his lucky stars that he listened to his "feeling" and made the phone call to the driver. Unfortunately with the older cell phones that they use, there's no facility to send a cc to the lodge to confirm that notice was given. Carlos describes previous occasions where he has wanted to hire excellent drivers only to discover, sometimes at a distressing moment, that they don't actually know how to receive and send text messages on their cell phones, and perhaps also don't know how to read them.

    On Wednesday, the headlines read, "Helpx Saves The Day!" Deb shook me awake at 7:15 a.m. with the words, "Wake up, the family is coming down for breakfast, their train ticket is for 8:20, not 8:45, and there are no staff in the building!" Cesar was already up, he'd heard them moving around, so we dived in and got the show on the road. Oddly, Gregorio wasn't here either. He hadn't squeezed the oranges the night before as he usually does before he leaves for the day, so we did that.  We cut up fruit, set the table, and served everything. The family left happily at 8 a.m. just as Ruth breezed through the door saying, "Oh, I don't know what happened! My alarm clock didn't go off. I woke up at 7 a.m. wondering what was going on!" She wasn't here until 8 a.m. yesterday as well, but of course there weren't any guests for breakfast then. On other days she has come in as late as 9 a.m., which is the time Pancha is supposed to arrive. And of course, Ruth raced out by 12:30 for her English class. Mind you, Pancha lives closer; perhaps she should be paid to arrive early enough to be the breakfast lady, instead.

    I cleared the table and we had our own breakfast; then Cesar worked hard after breakfast, sweeping the dining room and washing dishes while Ruth simply checked the email.  Gemma is ill with a cold. I have to find a way to tell Pancha that she needs to mop more than the small area in front of the kitchen sink, or at least find me a mop; there are dried coffee drops on the tile leading into the kitchen that have been there for a week.

    After getting up to create breakfast on our own with Cesar, Deb and I went to Urubamba with Gregorio to change money, and to buy various things for the lodge, including wood strips for the new brochure rack. We got back at noon, and Deb did the midday sink full of dishes with Gemma. Then they spent an hour trying to balance the three cashbox account books. That should be enough hours for today, but "Cecilia" is coming with her "padrino", and the staff are all a little anxious about her, including Gemma.  The lady was rude and dismissive to Gemma on the phone, so they decided that Steve, the patient charmer, should have the first crack at making her happy. She was booked for three nights...I hope it won't be too difficult to keep her mollified.

    Louise has put the kibosh on Carlos' proposal to advertise to travellers arriving on the train; Ruth can barely restrain her delight - she loves to see Carlos shot down, partly because he's onto her pilfering game and has locked horns with her over it before.  There's some prejudice involved too, Carlos claims; he's a "white" Spaniard, and from Bolivia, while all the rest of the staff are indigenous and local. I wasn't sure Louise would go along with it, given what the other staff have told me about her philosophical approach to marketing the lodge; the "half-price" seemed to throw her right away, even though the whole lodge has been completely empty most nights of the past week. She asked him to create a more detailed corporate marketing analysis and proposal, way beyond what is really necessary for a simple one week trial at a little B&B; I guess she is just stalling, making him spin his wheels. Carlos is really keen to make something happen, to develop new marketing ideas, and to create revenue instead of operating at a loss during low season.

    I didn't see his email to her, but Louise did not comprehend the "one week trial" nature of his proposal, and worried that the posters might stay up for weeks or months despite the fact that we dated the posters and intended to take them down on March 2nd.  We'd even sent her attachment copies of the posters. Carlos has drummed up business before this way, as a guide and a tour agency employee in La Paz, but Ruth and Gemma explain that Louise will think that it will somehow cheapen the reputation of the lodge to lower the prices. I can understand that she's reluctant to attract backpackers, although they also spread word of mouth to parents and more well-to-do clients; but she doesn't even have a sliding scale for the agencies for high, low and shoulder seasons, with a break-even approach during low season and an enhanced commission for the tour agency operators.

    This should all be worked out and adjusted as required on the website, and Carlos should have produced photo-booklets for agency staff to flip through, for agency personnel to sell the lodge from their end, and should have visited the Cusco ones in person, at least. Certainly in all the years we've travelled and in the hotels I've worked in, that has been a "best practices" marketing approach, but it hasn't been adopted at this B&B. Quite apart from wanting to cover costs on at least a break-even basis, the more annual revenue she can show on the books, the more she can ask for the lodge when she sells it, of course. And the more revenue she can accrue in low season, the more improvements she can make to the hot water system and other elements of the lodge, to increase its value to customers and to prospective buyers. Gemma says "high season" will run from March to December, mind you; but I'm sure that includes shoulder seasons on both sides as well. They can't have zero occupancy for three months and 100% for nine months, that wouldn't make sense.

    Gemma was too ill - and in the middle of a scrap with Cesar - to review Ruth's purchases yesterday. Deb isn't willing, doesn't want to get involved in that even with Gemma's help. She says it simply isn't the role of a volunteer to police the paid staff, and she's right, of course. 

    Gemma and Cesar suddenly realized that Carlos brought his family to eat at the lodge while we were away at the Peach Festival, and took 20 soles from the cashbox to pay for the groceries for the meal, pretending it was to feed the staff and Helpx volunteers; there was some left over for our supper, but really the money covered the meal of five family members at lunch. They tell us that Louise isn't happy with Carlos because he spends his time here sending emails and trying to create business on the side, including his astronomy tours, when he should be focused on the more mundane nuts-and-bolts of lodge business. He wants to make things happen, and he is ambitious to have a larger role for himself, and more creative autonomy. Perhaps she considers some of his ideas hare-brained. He has a need, as a young guy with family history, and now a young father, to carve out a larger success for himself. 

    Mind you, there's also the suggestion from Gemma that Louise has asked Carlos to do certain things that he hasn't done for her, so I'm sure I don't know the whole story. Gemma likes him, but she describes silly, absent-minded mistakes that he's made that she and Cesar have caught and corrected. I've seen that he leaves early, leaving them in charge of reception...not that there are any guests to be received on those days when he does it, mind you, but it seems wrong for paid staff to leave their shifts early and leave the lodge in the hands of volunteers.

    It is certainly an even more convoluted situation than I'd first been able to appreciate. Anyway, I have my wood strip offcuts now, they only cost $2.50 for enough wood to make a second brochure rack, so I'll start on that tomorrow.

    There is an older gentleman and his Spanish companion interviewing Arturo at length in the lobby for about an hour now about whether he is a true spiritual leader and a fully realized being that the older gentleman could trust to explore the spiritual energy and experience that he is searching for.  The older gentleman wants to share his own spiritual awareness with Arturo in a two-way exchange, and doesn't believe that such things should have a dollar figure attached.  Arturo is trying to figure out how to get around that odd objection! He's explaining that there are lots of wise people in the "Sacred Valley" who've been through the experience of unconditional love that the gentleman seeks to achieve. The gentleman has had two ecstatic experiences in his life already, which he identifies as the experience of samadhi, and wants to know what the catalyst or trigger is, and how to achieve it at will instead of by accident - he wants to live in a state of perpetual bliss, I guess. 

    Arturo explains that he's a "medicine man", and I think he's getting around to volunteering mescaline as his trigger or tool to achieve samadhi. Ah yes, now they're discussing peyote and the San Pedro cactus...and the hallucinogenic experience, about which the old man says, having tried LSD in his youth, "that's not what I'm looking for - I'm looking for an authentic opening of my heart".  I'm left wondering why people are always so willing to believe in the Emperor's new clothes. And why he's asking a peyote pusher in the Andes for samadhi instead of a guru in India. The old guy finally decides that Arturo is not the genuine article, or at least not quite what he is looking for, and leaves.

    Cecilia finally arrived, with her friends from the U.S., a couple named Dick and Christine Stratton. Nice people - Christine and I watched and talked about hummingbirds, talked about the living museum in Arizona that we'd both been to, and about the Hooded Siskin that she could see with her binoculars up the rock face behind the lodge.

    On Thursday, for the second day in a row, Helpx Saved The Day! But this time it was only me and Gregorio who created breakfast for Cecilia and the Strattons. Deb was ill, and Ruth, true to form, didn't show up until 8:45. She's supposed to start work at 7 and have the breakfast ready for 7:30. She came breezing in and introduced herself to the guests, greeting Cecilia like a long-lost friend - they have a "thing" in common because they are fellow Peruvians, and Cecilia's rudeness to Gemma was based on the fact that she was a "Spaniard", and what could she possibly know about how things work in Peru? 

    Ruth's explanation for being so late was that she had to wait "fifteen minutes" for a car that had room for her; but of course, she was 105 minutes late for work, and she didn't offer an explanation to account for the other hour and a half. It seems like Gregorio, who lives right next door to her in the small town not too distant, often covers for Ruth by arriving early and doing the breakfast set-up. He's a rock, a very solid employee who never stops working at something, whether inside or outside the building. His current project is varnishing and painting the door from the street, sprucing up the sign, the lintel, etc. It improves the "curb appeal" quite a bit.

    I've had great conversations with Dick and Christine last night and this morning - they're a fine couple who are interested in religion (Catholic), charitable foundations, Incan history, and birds - Christine is thrilled with the hummingbirds, especially the Giant Hummingbird, which is a bit drab, but as large as a cardinal.  We watched it together when she first arrived, since it is another one of the "Twenty Hummingbirds to See Before You Die".  Cecilia turns out to be not such a problem, at least for me; she's more of a problem for Dick and Christine, actually, because they have organization issues with her that have more to do with a lack of clear thinking than with language difficulties. Cecilia actually lives and works in Virginia now, in the U.S.

    I took them to the pathway entrance to Cerro Pinkuylluna, which is down our street but hard to identify if you've never seen it before. It looks like the entrance to one of the homes or lodges. I offered them the umbrella but they didn't take it; while they were up the hill and I was having my own breakfast, it began to rain. I went up the hill after them with the umbrella, went to the ruins to the left and to the right, but couldn't find them. I guess they came down and went somewhere else in town with safer footing. By 11:30 a.m. I'd planned to begin sanding and preparing the wood strips for the new brochure rack - when the rain stops, because I have to work out back in the yard,.  There's no indoor workshop space. On the other hand, I'd already put in a full morning, and I would be hosting with them in the afternoon as well.  And I would walk them to the train station at 3, because they're overnighting in Aguas Calientes.

    I returned to find Cesar and Gemma helping Pancha with all the breakfast dishes, while Ruth simply surfed on the lodge computer all morning. Deb had already done the room from two nights ago this morning, and the laundry for that, and Pancha went to do the shopping and record the purchases by herself. When there are no emails to respond to, Ruth should be on her feet watching for ways to help the guests, and looking for other useful, helpful things to do. I decided to nap, and delay starting my brochure rack until tomorrow, hoping for a dry, sunny morning.

    I also have more neighbourhood hiking to do in order to tell guests who stay more than one overnight what they can see and do while they are here. There's a real job to be done selling the town of Ollantaytambo itself, actually - I don't know if there's a commercial association to develop partnerships and ideas to attract guests to stay more than one night in the town - I haven't seen any evidence of one - but there should be. [Later, Carlos told me that there had been, and described it, but it doesn't exist any longer - the president, a lawyer who tied up the group in procedural issues, died; the vice-president - Louise - didn't want to step up into that role, and neither did anyone else, apparently. Carlos said the group had met and talked a great deal, but hadn't actually accomplished much.]

    Organizing a group like that would be an important role in this community that would benefit the whole community; and related to that, producing a little monthly newsletter in paper and online to be delivered to each of the businesses, carrying small ads for each business who wants to support it, to increase referrals from other business owners, and to treat the tourist service in this town as a team effort. In many tourist centres, this kind of publication is designed for hostel, B&B and hotel guests as well, to be left in their rooms along with a decent map.  It helps them design their own travel experience, and the publication is financed by the ad revenue from local businesses. 

    There are few people in this town with the English writing skills to carry a newsletter like this forward, so this could be a great adjunct activity for Apu Lodge, and the lodge could feature its own ad prominently, at no cost, and send copies of its newsletter to important referral tour agencies in Cusco, Lima and other cities, and even to tour agents internationally, to use as conversation guides with customers. It could appear every two weeks on the Apu Lodge website as well, for foreign visitors to read. 

    This would really build the long-distance profile and awareness of the lodge, its facilities, and the attractions of the largely unknown "only remaining living Inca village" that surrounds it, overshadowed as it is in international tourism consciousness by Machu Picchu. The goal would be to encourage travelers to stay one extra night and spend an extra day exploring this other regional royal estate of Manco Inca (one of only four or five, which includes Machu Picchu, and not counting the Incan capital, which was Cusco); if successful, room occupancy and revenue could as much as double. Carlos' craving to lead daily Ollantaytambo walking tours to both English and Spanish speaking visitors would fit perfectly into that vision.

    By Friday, Deb had been ill for two days, but was now back on her feet. There were no overnight guests, and consequently no paid staff at all in the lodge when I woke up. Ruth arrived at 8:50 a.m.; the other staff trickled in at 9:15 and 9:25, and there were only four buns left at the bakery, which were gobbled up before I got any. Seems like a pattern; Gemma says they've kept these sort of hours ever since Louise left for Scotland. Cesar and Gemma don't get up this early in the morning if they're not scheduled to be on duty, so Deb and I had the place to ourselves and got our own breakfast. I squeezed fresh orange juice, made coffee...but it took until after 11 before the giant oven at the bakery two blocks away disgorged a second round of buns. 

    Mind you, Pancha was always here when she was supposed to, and we've always been fed a lunch. It was raining again, so I won't be able to begin my brochure rack project yet.  It looks like another day of background reading. Ruth spent her morning doing English with Deb and playing with her son. Gemma says she asked for help with her Excel accounts yesterday, which are a mess, but Gemma refused to be drawn into that quagmire. Yesterday Carlos wanted me to speak to Ruth about arriving so late and leaving Gregorio and me to stage and serve the breakfast, with "his full authority"; we're not sure what authority he has, since neither of them is officially a manager, each is jealous and can't stand the other.

    I finished Last Days of the Incas and feel considerably more knowledgeable.  I was preparing to read a final couple of books, not as substantial, and as soon as Deborah felt well enough we'd make our own pilgrimage to Machu Picchu.  I'm now aware that this site isn't as solely significant to the history of the empire as most visitors believe. Nor is there much reason for the apparent New Age magnetism of the site. It is, however, the best known architectural fascination from the only one of six world-wide civilizations to blossom and thrive in high altitude, before the Spaniards, along with the Portuguese, closed the entire South American continent to all other visitors, including scientific ones, for two hundred more years. 

    There were only twelve Inca kings in a line of succession that began at roughly 1200 A.D.  The 9th and 10th created the actual Incan empire, which lasted only 90 years before being smashed apart by the Spaniards. Until then, the elite 100,000 Incas, through a succession of effectively only four emperors, conquered and ruled an empire of ten million inhabitants with 700 different languages over a 4,000 kilometre empire with forts and storehouses, royal retreats, agricultural terraces and stone-paved roads. They were in turn controlled like puppets by only 168 brutal and illiterate entrepreneurial Spaniards, who smashed the empire apart in only five years, is another sad and astonishing twist of the tale.

    I'm glad we volunteered to stay here at the Lodge for a few weeks. I watch other visitors arrive for an expensive flying visit to satisfy the "Machu Picchu" item on their "bucket list", without being able to make the time to absorb much of the geography, landscape and natural environment, and the cultures of the Sacred Valley.  To many N. American visitors these weirdly costumed people just look like aliens, and they completely miss the history that is dotted all over these peaks and soaked into these valleys.

Next: more lodge details and a sweaty experience

Ain't She a Peach!

    Here are photos of the Peach Festival and a few other things.    

    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.

Next: Lodge trivia and a trip to Urubamba

Valentine's Day, not quite a massacre...

Ruth the accountant and morning manager is pilfering from the B&B supply purchases on an almost daily basis, probably has been for a long time; the other staff discuss it openly and document it, but have no idea what, if anything, will be done about it. Gemma watches her like a hawk, checks every shopping list and bill and inspects the purchases for missing items when they come in, and challenges her on every missing item. After a fanciful explanation which usually involves "oh, the shopkeeper must have forgotten to put it in the bag", Ruth produces the missing item a day or two later. Or she is quick to blame Pancha, who walks down to the market with her to help her carry the groceries back, but Gemma says Pancha has nothing to do with it. This has happened twice in the three days we've been here! Gemma and Cesar are just unpaid Helpx volunteers, like us, sleeping in one of the rooms for free and working much longer hours than Helpx recommends, and technically buying their own dinner, although they are running out of travel budget and generally eat lunch leftovers in the lodge kitchen for their supper. Gemma deals with Ruth because Carlos can't - when he engages with her over these issues, they fight. The rest of the staff filled us in on what they've documented before we got here. This week Gemma is going to Cusco to do the big shopping trip herself, partly to save the hassle of counting every item and balancing the cash when Ruth gets back.

Carlos, who is from all first appearances an honest, well-educated and quite bilingual manager from Bolivia (was in Australia as a kid and the U.S. as an adult), didn't record a reservation for the couple that arrived unexpectedly yesterday - with their confirmation email in hand! This morning he endured a snarled mess in the booking of horses for a newlywed couple and another group later in the day who wanted to enjoy a ride in the nearby hills. He was supposed to phone very early to confirm so that the horses would be brought and ready. Gemma says that Carlos "gets distracted by a passing butterfly"...on the other hand, the horse owner who sent his horses somewhere else because "it was raining" when he woke up and he hadn't received the confirmation phone call should have phoned Carlos before sending his horses somewhere else. He seems to have been confused about the fact that there were two separate couples who wanted to go riding, and took the two times he was given as some sort of "choice" that he could select. Mind you, the agent for the second group said that there was a newly married couple in that group as well (actually they were only engaged and are here with both sets of parents so they couldn't share the room that Deb and Gemma had carefully prepared with flowers and cut-out red hearts!), so perhaps that sowed the seed of misunderstanding.

Gemma the ultra-efficient Philippina Spaniard photographer and traveller who speaks English, Spanish, Catalan, Tagalog and one other language of the Philippines and is working on her French and now Quechua, had to be woken up at 7:30 to respond to a desperate call from Carlos. She worked the phones trying to source other horses. (Ruth should have been here by then but didn't show up until 9 a.m. with her son in tow and spent the first half hour just chewing the fat with Francesca the cook.) Oddly, Gemma spoke with Walter the horse guy just last night right in front of me here in the lobby and confirmed the need for the horses, but she wasn't made aware that an even earlier morning phone call might also have been required; that was, apparently, part of a conversation Carlos and Walter had earlier. Gemma got Louise's husband (ex) into the act (he usually just occupies a room and does sweet nothing to help out at the lodge) because he's a local and has a contact who has horses, but the contact also owns a bar and just wasn't available at this hour of the morning! Gemma sourced other horses but they wanted $80 for a couple of hours (an insane price for Peru, lots of stables in Canada or the U.S. are cheaper than that), rather than the $50 Carlos had originally contracted. I guess Carlos and/or the lodge will have to eat the difference. Smart Gemma located these horses on the internet by reasoning that a more remote stable might not be as busy, so the groups had to travel a bit and the first couple experienced a bit of a delay, but their two hour tours on horseback were saved, and they reported being very pleased with the views and the experience.

When he returned to the lodge at 4 p.m., Carlos began to take it out on Gemma even though it was clearly all his fault and she had saved his bacon. She was already upset with him for several reasons, so she let him have it back with both barrels, and he went away and cried about it all a bit, then came back and apologised to her. I'm pretty sure all will be better now; Gemma felt badly because she's convinced that Carlos is a really good guy and they've had a good relationship and built up a lot of trust until now. He's soft-hearted, but maybe just a little soft in the head as well, sometimes...a distractible academic who has a business in the winter doing astronomy with the tourists, using his telescopes.

Louise's husband is a recluse, except for the occasional local visitor. He seems to have some sort of company to do "spiritual medicine" that involves mescal tea (psychedelic mescaline = "spiritual" visions...) but Deb says he charges a ridiculous price and doesn't have many customers, so he just sits around all day, showers in the empty rooms in the mornings, and maybe spends a lot of his day at his friend's bar or hangs out with other buddies in town.

Deb wants to start a novel using the characters at the lodge - "they're all here", she says.

The water is low and none is coming in; the propane may be out (my shower went cold and didn't recover); and they are expecting a full house tonight. If reservations are overlooked, what about the possibility of overbooking? Hmm...I hope it doesn't get more awkward and uncomfortable than this. If Gemma weren't here, I don't know how this place would function. I've checked the water situation and informed Cesar and Gregorio, and mentioned Louise's email instructing them to fill the emergency tank with river water from the aqueduct above the back garden wall (she cc'd me), but so far nothing's happened; I think they're waiting for Carlos' arrival at around 2 p.m. to decide what to do, and maybe they're keeping their fingers crossed that the city repair will be finished before the guests arrive.

Evening: Paradise Restored! I had a nap, got up at 4 and saw the first of tonight's guests walking up the path. I went out to meet them, and met Carlos who was also just arriving. I ran over to the underground tank and popped the lid and...glory be! Full of clean, clear water. The upper tank was already also full and ready to go, pumped up there automatically. I met the guests, shook their hands, and enjoyed their ecstatic appreciation of our surroundings. The newlywed couple from last night has decided to stay over, and this seems to be a family of five spanning both sides of a couple about to be married - not sure exactly when or where, yet. For now, then, nothing but bliss and joy surround us. Oh - and nice flowers. I spent part of the day collecting flower photos from the plants in our garden to create a fresh slideshow for you. And of course, it's my snowbound family I'm thinking of when I post this. No captions this time, the flowers speak for themselves, but most of them are snapdragons and geraniums, with some cana lilies and a few other things, all in magnificent colour.

Carlos has asked us to do some research for him, finding well-recommended local businesses on the internet that he can create partnerships with the lodge, to do mutual referrals of customers - horseback riding, tours, better quality lodges and B&B's in onward communities, etc. Hosting was fun today.

We went out for Valentine's Dinner to Puka Rumi, probably one of the top three restaurants in town. Deb had alpaca with a spinach potato puré. I had the best $8 gourmet plate of "tropical chicken" you can imagine: succulent slices of breast in ginger sauce on a bed of puréed sweet potato divided by slices of peach and pineapple. We swapped plates halfway through, of course, but Deb decided she didn't like having her dinner and dessert all on the same plate, so I had to give hers back after I'd tried the alpaca. And we split a large bottle of Cusqueña Negra, a very black beer but not heavy like a Guinness; it actually has a very fruity flavour. We finished off with some chocolate heart shaped cookies from a baker just off the plaza. Lovely.

The end of the Inca Stinka!

    A couple showed up early in the morning with a reservation that wasn't in the book...surprise! It's Carlos' day off and he's at the dentist, but Gemma and Cesar and the rest of the paid staff are here. We managed to make the couple feel welcome and not too anxious about the lack of water.  We put them in a clean room, and the American husband set off with his camera to see the ruins above the town. Deb sat with his Peruvian wife and chatted to keep her company while the man was gone.  By the end of the day, with enough water for hot showers and toilet flushes, and a few hours of fun with Deb, Gemma, Cesar and me in the lounge, they left early on the train to Machu Picchu, very content with their stay.  They shook our hands and wrote a positive comment in the book for future visitors.

    The day before they left, the rain had stopped, and it was nice and sunny. No-one had had showers for two days; I was torn between the need for boiling water and having a sponge bath, flushing the toilet, and providing the same amenities for our two guests, all with water that we would have to cart up the hill in plastic tubs. The water had mysteriously started to run for a while at night, but stopped after only about twenty minutes. By mid-morning, however, there was a trickle of water going into the below ground tank from the city water supply, so I kept my fingers crossed that the reservoirs would fill without as much effort from us as we had to supply yesterday. 

    We did manage to fill the upper reservoir from the rainwater and the primary reservoir, and Gregorio kept the flow choked off so that the taps work, but at not much more than a trickle, until we knew whether our crisis has actually passed or not. We did refill the upper reservoir again at dusk, and finally managed to take short hot showers, which was a relief. Now we're watching to see if any more water comes to us mysteriously overnight; certainly the aqueducts and ditches have begun to run again, and they were dry even as we collected rainwater from a fairly strong rain, which is something to puzzle about. Gregorio and Carlos dragged out a hose from which I believe they intended to fill the emergency tank, but the water is as thick with mud as liquid chocolate, so they left the hose sitting out on the lawn for now, since we'd gathered enough water by other means for the time being. Maybe that will be an "emergency, emergency back-up".

    One disappointment was that I discovered that the emergency reserve tank has no valve and bypass line from the supply pipe rising from the pump to the upper reservoir, which would be an awfully cheap and simple thing to add. Cesar told me he thinks that tank was originally filled by hand from the river water that flows down an aqueduct just above the garden, out a water spout and into a fish pond, so it was pretty old and dirty. Without the extra valve and short bit of pipe, we can't fill the emergency reserve with the pump from the primary tank. I tried to fill it from the roof with rainwater yesterday - we got it half full by collecting buckets for hours and tipping them in, but a permanent rainwater capture system with a hose from the corner downspout would be more ideal. Better still would be to make it an integral part of a clean water, three tank system, with the rainwater bypass fill system as an emergency option in case the town supply ever fails again. Perhaps once the town supply line is repaired, three tanks would be overcapacity; but that kind of redundancy is always nice to have in reserve, like a healthy bank balance.

    Deb hauled me out of my chair (where I was studying my Ollantaytambo hosting info) to go and buy a couple of bottles of wine to share with Gemma and Cesar.  I got even by detouring her upward to the storehouse ruins on the vertical rock face above the lodge. It was difficult going up but we stopped frequently to catch our breath (why did people with such short legs make such high steps?), and dangerous coming down on sixty year old rubber legs, but I went slowly and always found myself a handhold. The photos are worth it, although Cesar tells me a man tumbled to his death from that path only a year ago.

    There are many theories and fanciful stories about the reasons for various structures that were built 500 years ago. One is that crop storage was cooler and dryer up on the slopes; some researchers have posited that soil samples show that the soil on the stone walled terraces came all the way from the Amazon and some of the guides claim that it was used to grow flowers, not crops (but why right next to crop storage houses?). They certainly did travel and trade with the Amazon region, but that's an awful lot of soil to fill thousands of hectares of terraces, so I'm pretty skeptical of that claim.  The rich soil built up on the terraces could also be explained by simple composting techniques with manure, and gathering good soil from more local sources (river valleys and microclimate areas). 

    They also claim that circular platforms on the steep hills were where musicians would sit and play to the workers, and could be heard throughout the valley. It's true that sound carries well between the rock walls of this valley, but the one I photographed had a tiny house with a little door that only sheep and a crouched down shepherd could have squeezed through, so I suspect it was simply for shelter, and maybe a look-out for unwelcome arrivals to their valley.

    In the valley there are flat, fertile fields for growing, much superior to the terraces on the hills, but "In 1536, on the plain of Mascabamba, near Ollantaytambo, Manco Inca defeated a Spanish expedition" (coming from Cusco, which they had already taken) "blocking their advance from a set of high terraces and flooding the plain. Despite his victory, however, Manco Inca did not consider his position tenable so the following year he withdrew to the heavily forested site of Vilcabamba." 

    The buildings I photographed would have served as high forts, food growing and storage areas, and places to safeguard your animals. The Spanish, encumbered by armour, weapons, heavy supplies and equipment, would have had a very difficult time climbing the path we followed today - Spanish horses could not have managed it, but llamas and llamingos probably could - and the Spanish would have had spears and rocks raining down on them as they tried to fire upward on people who could dodge behind any boulder. 

    The Inca soldiers didn't have arrows, except those from the Amazonian tribes doing their compulsory Imperial service , but they had slings, and lots of rocks to put in them. These heights are extremely defensible. Incredibly, however, it took many years before one of the Inca generals, General Quisquis, realized that the steep escarpments were the one and only thing that gave the Incas the upper hand, so to speak, against the Spanish horses.  Just as he began employing the technique of using height to their advantage, his men finally became so fed up with being defeated by the tiny group of Spanish soldiers that they "fragged" him with a lance so that they could all go home to their families. 

    Manco Inca used his techniques again in 1536, but I wonder whether water storage and access for a large guerrilla army became a problem for the defenders. Maybe that's why he concluded that campaigning from the heights was untenable and switched his base of operations to a lower, heavily forested location.

    We've heard from Alan Harman, and it appears we'll be doing the same sort of accountancy review of at least one of his projects that we did for Pam Gilbert in Ecuador. I'm beginning to suspect that this is a common need of charitable foundations throughout S. America and probably throughout any part of the third world we choose to travel.

    I'm enjoying the profusion of flowers, both those in the lodge garden and the wild flowers up the hillside, as well as the half dozen hummingbirds that live and feed from the rock wall behind the house. One came to hover in front of the window panes in the front door this morning; I'm wondering if we could locate a hummingbird feeder to put up in the back yard so that they'd be close enough for visitors with cameras to take photos. There might be other types of feeders that one could mount all along the rock wall at the back to attract other birds.  Most visitors to an area like this are eager photographers and some are avid birders as well.

Next: Peach Festival

Ollantaytambo, oh so rambo

    These photos illustrate our first impressions of Ollantaytambo.   

    We took a cab to the Cuzco bus terminal and had him drop us where the "collectivos" gather - the minivans that squeeze in eleven passengers plus a driver before they leave the station. Predictably, the driver asked for fifty percent more than he was actually willing to accept for the ride. "15?" Deb repeated, and we asked him to show us his vehicle. There were two young French girls sitting inside already. "How much are you paying?", Deb asked them. "10", was the answer. "Very well", said Deb to the driver, knowing the girls had already probably agreed to pay more than the fare for the locals who would soon fill up the empty seats, "obviously we won't pay more than that. Take 10, or we'll go talk to another driver." "Fine", he said..."10." Later we saw a sign for tourists at the train station that had the posted prices for a collectivo from Ollantaytambo to Cusco: sure enough, it was 10 soles.

    The sun was bright and strong, and I wished I were able to take photos at every turn. Between my fascination for residential architecture and the intoxication of seeing things I've never seen before, and my favourite colour - green, in all its myriad shades - I would have had a very long photo album to share. 

    The buildings were all sun dried mud and red clay brick with straw in them, and where a wall wasn't capped, green plants with yellow flowers would sprout. The bottom course has to be made of stone to withstand heavy rains, though, or at least properly parged - where it wasn't, you sometimes saw the bottom two or three courses of mud bricks eroding out from under the rest of the wall! Those courses would be a pain to replace.

    The driver dropped all but the four of us by the time he reached Urubamba, and then pulled into a terminal where he informed us he wouldn't go any further with only four passengers, and we should pay him and continue in a smaller taxi. "That isn't good," said Deb. "We won't pay you at all, in that case. Find us the taxi, and you pay him to take us where we're going; when we arrive at Ollantaytambo we'll pay him, and you can work it all out with him afterward...this has nothing to do with us." After some complaint from both drivers, they finally agreed that was obviously the only way they were going to be paid anything, so the first one paid off the second one out of his pocket, and we continued in a little white car.

    At Ollantaytambo we were unloaded at the main plaza, and walked up a stone walk between buildings for about five minutes, finally arriving at Apu Lodge. The views are pretty spectacular. There is a sheer rock face behind the lodge, and ruins of various fortifications and grain storehouses dotting the steep hills around us, in addition to the main ruins that are the focus of visits by most tourists - although archaeologists are fascinated by the range of Inca building styles they can examine right inside the town itself. 

     One needs to be Rambo-fit to get around in this town...if you aren't when you arrive, you will be by the time you leave. (My belt, by the way, has already gone in four notches, a good three inches, since this winter's travel began.) This is not the worst place one could spend seven weeks.

    Imagine a Tibetan town, a medieval European one, and Brigadoon, all rolled into one...except that it is laid out in a grid, by an Inkan architect and emperor named Pachacuti (or Pachacutec) in the early 1500's. It became a Royal Inka City, before being captured by the invading Spanish. Needless to say, he didn't design it for cars, or even for wheeled carts that had to pass each other.  You can get to the main plaza by car, but then you walk up streets that only pedestrians can navigate, and not ones with weak ankles either; they are made of uneven cobblestone. Donkeys and llamas could barely pass each other.  

    It is more hazardous walking these streets in the dark.  As we walked home from a restaurant, I tried to spot dog poop before it spotted my new boots, which I had to lace up tight to handle the uneven terrain. The Inka - for that's what at least some of these people are, and the rest consider themselves to be, in what is said to be the last living Inkan town - love their dogs, just as other Kitchwa and Quechua do, not only as guard animals, but as free ranging companions in their communities. The dogs are well fed, attractive looking for the most part, and some are identifiable pure breeds. When not wandering the town in pairs or foursomes, dodging traffic with nimble aplomb, as intelligent and car aware as any human pedestrians, they sit at the entrances to their homes, never tied or chained; but they don't bark and guard the homes like farm dogs. They watch you step over and past them with nary a snarl or a growl.

    From Urubamba onward we began to see "moto-taxis" (called "tuk-tuks" in Asia), which are a particularly hazardous three-wheeled way to fly around bumpy streets, but they are here in abundance for the tourists and locals to hire as taxis. But even those can't negotiate the majority of narrow streets in the grid of Ollantaytambo. They basically take people from the main plaza a short distance down to the train station, and back.

    There are two volunteers who've been here for quite a while, and they seem to have a lock on the reception and most other functions. There are two paid reception staff named Carlos and Ruth; and there are other local people (Francesca, Gregorio, Karina) hired to do cleaning, cooking, gardening, etc. So we'll just have to worm our way in slowly in order to learn how to make ourselves useful. The other volunteers are very kind and friendly, and they plan to give us plenty of time to learn the ropes. Louise the owner is in Scotland until the beginning of March. I'll fire off an email to Alan Harman to tell him we're ready and willing to do his assignments as well.

    There is a little uncertainty in the air, however. Just before we arrived, heavy rains created a landslide and took out the town's water supply line. The locals are lining up in the main Plaza de Armas to get water in any container they have from a tanker truck. Apu Lodge has a main tank and a reserve tank, both still full, but I'm told that if the lodge was fully booked that might be enough to last for a full day. They don't collect rainwater, they don't do solar water heating (which would help with shower water heating, of course - guests run a lot of cold water before the propane heated hot water arrives at the shower head), and they don't have composting toilets, which would save a lot of water. But I guess under normal circumstances there's enough water not to have to worry about such measures.

    Tuesday: I spoke too soon. No photos today, and plenty of work. We woke up to no electricity and no water. The upper tank and the primary tank were both empty.  Ruth the accountant and morning receptionist thought all three tanks were empty. I began to think of solutions, but my snooping around soon discovered that the reserve tank was actually full; the only problem was that without power, it couldn't be pumped to the upper tank, from where it would have fed by gravity to the plumbing throughout the building. I cut a siphon from a hose, found a metal garden watering can, and took water into the kitchen that way. The pile of dirty dishes had reached the point of almost overflowing onto the floor, so we boiled some water and Deb and I washed the dishes while Ruth and "Pancha" (Francesca) had breakfast. At noon the electricity came on, so Ruth tried to get the pump to put the reserve tank water up to the upper tank; at first it wouldn't work and we didn't know why, until she remembered that the sensor in the primary tank was hanging in air so she pulled it up above the ground, and the pump went on. I guess that's a failsafe device so the pump can't run itself dry if there's no water in the primary.

    We thought all was well, but suddenly there was no water coming from the kitchen taps again. Everybody ran about scratching their heads, until I suddenly realized the guests who'd left in the middle of the night hadn't been able to have showers, and might have left their taps open while trying to get some water out of them. Cesar and I grabbed keys and ran to check those rooms, but we actually found the taps open and water on the floor in another room inhabited by Kim, a frequent guest and a friend of the lodge. She'd had too many beers the night before and had gotten up early to ride a horse to a charity project her foundation was being asked to consider. She's gonna catch it from the staff and volunteers when she gets back! The upper reservoir had run bone dry in less than two hours.

    What next? We considered going to the main plaza to meet the tanker truck, but we didn't have anything to carry the water back in but shallow laundry and child bathing tubs; we decided we'd take the cart, but our way was blocked by a motorcycle and another cart - two carts can't pass each other on this narrow street. It was beginning to rain, so I walked around the building and spotted a downspout that would disconnect quite easily. Gregorio the gardener saw what I was doing and disconnected a second one from a balcony at the back of the building; but the rain was too light to accumulate sufficiently.  Cesar (another Helpx guy), Gregorio and I hiked over to Pancha's house three times and brought home about forty gallons, which we can boil, and we have some bottles of drinking water. Deb came on one trip, to see the house full of guinea pigs. 

    A lady from the utility dropped in with her clipboard - she was canvassing to see who had water. Some of the village got it back as a result of a temporary bypass line they'd put in, but it hadn't reached this high, perhaps because the emergency system didn't have enough pressure, or just didn't carry enough water, and everyone lower down was frantically filling every reservoir and jerry can they had while they could. She said it would have to be disconnected again once they were ready to put in the main pipe section, and no-one knows for sure how long it will take to complete that repair.

    Later the rain increased again.  I McGyvered a hose to a plastic bottle which I attached to the downspout, and we ran back and forth with enough buckets to half-fill the reservoir tank. We were trying to rig the same thing to the upper downspout so we could run the hose directly into the reservoir tank, but hours of effort couldn't result in a way to attach the bottle - we just couldn't quite reach the end of the eavestrough.  Finally night fell and we gave up until morning. We were hoping it might fill overnight on its own while we slept. We'll probably figure out how to attach the bottle tomorrow, and just as soon as we do, they'll finish the supply line repair...

    It was an interesting introduction to Apu Lodge. Thankfully, the five rooms of regular guests left this morning, and no more are expected to arrive until Thursday; but we're expecting a full house that evening, so our fingers are crossed that by then, either the pipe will be repaired, or we will have come up with a rain collection solution that works.

Next: water back on, everything back to normal

PERUsing Cusco

    Here's a photo album that'll give you a bit of a feel for Cuzco (spell it with an s or a z, according to your mood) and some carnival fun.

    We had to sit in the Lima airport for six hours overnight. Lima airport, to its shame, has a few benches near the check-in, but other than that, nothing for those caught in a long connection, not even chairs. There are hundreds of chairs, and in fact most are empty; but they're only for people who buy food from the restaurants (and who could be hungry when there was a snack on each of our two flights?); so there were passengers stretched out on the tile over the whole second floor. We camped in a corner of one restaurant out of sight of the cashier, on a padded bench; when the waiter came by we stalled, pretending we were hunting for the best exchange rate to get Soles to buy something, and finally ordered bubbly water. They left us alone and we slept sitting up, with few neighbours.

    Lima airport does have wifi, but it's not free like Quito airport and most other internationals; you have to buy it from a store somewhere, and the home page doesn't tell you where that is, so we didn't bother.

    At Cusco we walked into the worst swarm of jineteros (a slang word for hustlers that I learned when we were in Cuba) I've seen in ages. Our hostel was supposed to have sent a taxi, but he wasn't there. We spent half an hour waiting and trying to decide what to do. In Lima a nice woman had approached Deborah and volunteered "only information", and of course Deb falls for this sort of thing every time - when you're tired, it's hard to ask yourself, "Wait, why do I want this? What's in it for her? What's in it for me? Why does she want to write down my name on a numbered voucher?" I was suspicious.  Of course, a man recognised my Tilley hat and approached me at the baggage carousel. He had the name "Gilchris" on a placard. I knew the real taxi driver with our name on a placard would have no idea what I looked like. Sure enough, the old lady had called ahead with a description and possibly a cell phone photo, and as we were being ushered toward two chairs in front of a tour operator's desk, I dug my heels in and mutinied.

    We went back to looking for the real taxi we were expecting. It still wasn't there, but dozens of other "official taxi" drivers and "official information" people hounded us. (The real "official information" office wasn't open for the day, it was still too early.) The only pay phone was conveniently "broken", and a half dozen people volunteered to make calls for us on their cell phones. The "official airport taxi" company even has a kiosk by the exit door, and their rates are posted: 30 soles into town centre, 35 or 40 to other common locations. I asked one driver how much it would be to our hostel, and he quoted 40 soles. I said, "that's crazy", knowing it couldn't be that much higher than Ecuador, and I knew the distance, roughly. "Oh, yeah", he said, "gasoline is very expensive here. $8 a gallon!" Well, in fact gasoline is expensive here compared to Ecuador (but not that expensive), but the distance to the hostel wasn't going to use more than a litre. Whose job is it to monitor business practices here? Especially at the first point of encounter for foreign visitors? Why isn't there a minivan shuttle to the old city centre where all the hostels are located?

    We were tired, Deb was dizzy and confused and reluctant to be pushed to ask the right questions of anyone who wasn't trying to sell us something. She was tired, and the altitude hit her right away. A dozen "official" taxi drivers and "official information" agents told her that it was extremely common for hostels to promise a free taxi and then not deliver on their promise - surely that's what had happened, and we should just accept it and take their recommendations for a different hostel. She wandered around in a daze as I followed her with the luggage cart until suddenly she spotted a man with her name on a placard. We learned later he was late because an earlier taxi had had a problem. The name on the hostel was wrong, but it turned that he did, in fact, intend to take us to the right place, the Pakcha Real - one of only three hostels that had even bothered to respond to our email inquiries. And the hostel paid him: 12 soles (about $5), which is about the cost I'd figured on. So much for 40 soles in the "official airport taxi".

    The Pakcha Real hostel, which is now, unfortunately, permanently closed, was lovely when we were there, with large, clean rooms, well tiled, with intermittently hot showers, an outdoor lounge with a propane heater, an indoor sitting room with fireplace and dining table, a kitchen just for the travellers to use, and a continental breakfast served for us in the morning. 

    The hostel owner Daniel was a young straight-shooter who served us coca tea right away (always available in the guests' kitchen), and then we went to bed. When we woke up he gave us directions to the Scotiabank ATM and a decent mid-range restaurant, and a map of the central core of the city. I'd been very unimpressed driving in from the airport; the town looked like a miniature Quito but more run down and ugly. The only good thing, comparably, was the air quality. However, when we walked down the hill from Daniel's to the main plaza, I became charmed by the place. The old city is very pretty, and really old. It has many streets that are cobblestone and narrow, only for pedestrians; others that have been given over to cars, but are single lane, so that if you turn into one and there's another car coming toward you, one of you has to back up.

    It's "carnival" time from now until Ash Wednesday, and the main plaza is full of young people, including happy young tourists, participating in water fights and attacking each other with carnival foam. Even older tourists with cameras can be fair game; as I quietly circled trying to maintain my "journalist, non-combatant!" status, a young American girl decided I should get a taste of what I was photographing, so I got hit with water gun spray and a water balloon glanced off my thigh before I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and it was time to get the hell out of there. I did give her my most reproachful old guy look, and she said "perdón" and looked sheepish, so I guess I kind of won, sort of...

    The fourteen day forecast is rain, every day, day after day - they're just kidding, right? We did get an hour of sun today...much better for photographs. We'll leave soon for the Apu Lodge in Ollantaytambo, our base of operations for the next six and a half weeks. I'm guessing we'll be back in Cusco more than once; I want to take the open-topped double-decker bus tour of Cusco, if nothing else.

Next: Ollantaytambo