Gregorio got a well deserved raise, and maybe Pancha did too. Louise asked us to spend an hour each morning tutoring them both in English. Pancha wasn't too interested in expanding her horizons that way, but Gregorio seemed keen in spite of being a little shy. We built a version of our Meet & Greet skit that is tailor-made to the lodge setting. We had Gregorio greeting me as I came in the door, introducing me to the breakfast items and inviting me to sit down, asking me for my choices about fresh squeezed orange juice and whether I wanted my eggs fried or scrambled. We got Pancha started on duolingo.com, but it was slow going - she had no keyboarding skills yet.
We tried to get through to Patacancha again, this time in a very nice, tall, new white Mercedes tourist coach, but we still couldn't make it - we got to a place with water somehow soaking the road even though it hadn't rained for two days, as if a spring might have opened up at that spot. There was a guy who'd been standing there with a shovel for ten days doing nothing; an hour's work would have filled the deepest muddy ruts with rocks which are right at hand, so that vehicles could get through and past the wet spot. We got stuck and had to push the van out. The driver was nervous, he didn't know how to rock the vehicle the way we learn to get out of snow in Canada, and he didn't want to gun it through even though other vehicles had made it, in case he got stuck again or damaged the vehicle, so we had to come home again.
I managed to take a few good photos of majestic scenery along that gravel road that are in the album for this diary entry. They include the medieval looking Doorways of Ollantaytambo and some shots from Araqhama, a "suburb" of Ollantaytambo just across the river, south of the entrance to the Temple Hill complex.
Along the road to Patacancha we saw a donkey train, and homes destroyed by the recent flooding, with young volunteers from N. America and Europe helping the villagers to dig out, although I didn't get a chance to photograph those.
The following comments are from Ian, one of the Kiya Survivors managers who lived and worked here:
"The Peruvian Andes are home to some of the South America’s largest glaciers, sitting majestically on the high mountain peaks the Incas once worshipped. Indigenous Andean peoples still pay homage to them. Unfortunately, climate change has taken a toll. Elder community members point to black rocky peaks and speak with nostalgia of when they were a brilliant white. Younger men and women simply shrug their shoulders and signal how quickly the ice of their beloved Apus has quietly receded.
"In recent years however, the disappearance of the Peruvian glaciers has not been so quiet. The increasing pace of melting ice in the Peruvian Andes is believed to be impacting the rain cycles in the region, which can have potentially destructive consequences for the many communities which depend on agriculture for survival. Two weeks ago, as is unfortunately becoming more and more common here in the region of Cusco, the Patacancha and Vilcanota rivers flooded nearby communities due to unusually heavy rainfall. Over one hundred families lost their houses and an untold amount of farmland was destroyed along with its yet-to-be harvested crops.
"In the communities of Patacancha and Qhelqanqa, where the Alma Foundation has on-going projects, the impact of the flooding has gone without measurement and relatively unreported by the press and local authorities due to their distance and isolation from larger and lower altitude communities. The road to Patacancha, which eventually leads to Qhelqanqa, was washed away in three separate locations during the flood, cutting off access to the communities except for on foot. Fortunately, both communities suffered little damage to their houses - but unfortunately much of their very important potato crop was lost.
"In Patacancha, a large mudslide was stopped from destroying part of the school and the trout farm thanks to a wall built last year by the Municipality of Ollantaytambo through the Alma project. There was some loss of baby trout due to flooding of the farm’s pools, but overall the project will be able to continue as planned.
"In Qhelqanqa, the school did suffer some minor flooding, and the extent of the damage has yet to be investigated by municipal engineers. The Alma greenhouse was not affected by the flood.
"The impact of the loss of the potato crop is yet to be seen. In both Patacancha and Qhelqanqa, potato is planted mainly for consumption purposes. Nevertheless, there is good news. Patacancha and Qhelqanqa both still practice traditional communal ownership of land. Therefore, though the communities lost all of their farmland near the river and other areas due to flooding and mud slides, much of the potato crop planted in higher altitudes along the mountain sides can be salvaged. Thanks to traditional communal ownership, the surviving harvest will be divided amongst the entire community to ensure that no one will go hungry."
Next diary entry: Life at the Lodge
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