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

El Dorado...in Quito

    We listened to a concert by the Sinfónica Nacional de Ecuador inside the La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús, the church which is most famous for having its interior completely covered in gold leaf. The program included “Iberia” by Isaac Albéniz, which was very sweet, especially El Puerto. There were works by Manuel de Falla and Claude Debussy, all with a distinctively Spanish flavour to them, and two short works by Ecuadorian composer Claudio Aizaga. It was conducted well by a fairly young woman named Nathalie Marin (not the only young female conductor on their roster), and the orchestra played with passion and spirit, and with great technical skill. Ecuador can be proud of them. The church was filled with quite a high ratio of foreign culture freaks, mind you.

    The church is fascinating.  I learned a little bit of history about the Jesuits from John and from Jean - Jean was the one who invited us...local culture maven, she is...and many of her circle of friends were there. We also met Jeff, an engineer who is on his way to Malingua Pamba after a period of language study.

    The Jesuits did laudable mission work until the Pope tossed them out of Latin America and closed all their missions, giving them five days to exit. Originally the Jesuits believed in plain and simple churches, and a simple, self-sacrificing lifestyle, so I had trouble reconciling the gold leaf in the church (Jean says the only comparable one she's ever seen is in Brazil), but Jean pointed out that the local people brought gold as offering. They had so much of it, and it appeared to be something the Spaniards treasured.  They shipped it back to Spain in large quantities.  The Jesuits melted some of the offerings down, and workmen hammered it into gold leaf and applied it to the inside of the church. (Oddly enough, I didn't notice the presence of any armed guards...the electronics store beside the fountain had one in khaki with a submachine gun at the door last weekend!)

    There are many websites that tell the history of the Jesuits in Latin America, and one becomes sympathetic to their cause and their plight when reading them. There's also a great movie from 1986 called The Mission which one could probably rent or watch online.

    John described how the Jesuits would entice indigenous peoples in from the jungle by going out into a clearing and playing music. Turns out, some of the tribes they encountered had natural musical gifts. They were drawn to the new religion through the music, and there were indigenous choirs who sang in Spanish and in Latin. They learned to make western instruments that were prized in Europe, and recently a trunk full of music manuscript was found that contained original compositions, many written by indigenous musicians. Some of that music, John marvelled, has already found its way into the European repertoire and is being played there - he enjoyed a concert at Picadilly Circus some years back which included some of these indigenous compositions. I was reminded of the church choirs all through southern Africa who sing western choral harmonies and put the Welsh to shame, in spite of having no such choral tradition in their own music.

    It's a surprising world, with many sorts of golden experiences in it. Walking home through the old city, with little traffic and hardly anyone on the streets, the air had cleared somewhat from the day, and the buildings are very beautiful at night. During the day the air quality is truly awful - some street corners where buses converge, including the foot of our street, are as bad as Karachi when I was there thirty years ago. There are trucks that will leave their engines running for long periods outside the open windows of the hostel, like they never would if fuel was taxed more heavily and cops handed out tickets for idling. But even with all of that, when the sun shines, this is a pretty part of town.

    In my last diary entry I mentioned that we had a nice farewell dinner with Jeannie last night, prepared by Maggie. One interesting observation was that Jeannie agrees with Dustin about preferring Colombia to Ecuador, and says making friends in Ecuador is difficult (she's been here a year now).  The people are gracious and polite with old world dress and manners, but they don't socialize outside of their families, and they seem quite xenophobic and disinterested in the world outside their borders. That would jibe with my observation that Couchsurfing is largely a bust here - and even worse in Cusco, Peru, where the site has been co-opted almost entirely by people simply trying to sell rooms in their homes as "hostels". Dustin and Jeannie both expressed a preference for Colombia, and Medellin in particular. Perhaps Deb and I will plan another trip to check that city out in an upcoming winter.

    Like Carole King, "I felt the earth...move...under my feet". We experienced a Richter 6.9 earthquake, half a minute of rocking, with the epicentre just over 300 kilometres north of here, near the town of Pasto, Colombia. and 13 kms down. 

    We had a nice final visit with Any before she served us a merienda and drove us to the airport for our red-eye to Lima and our connection to Cusco. We saw the broken front window on the floor above hers where Edwin's parents' pressure cooker exploded a four few days ago, putting a hole through their kitchen table and metal fragments through the kitchen. They think the pressure escape valve must have been clogged with food. It's amazing that no-one was injured. If you own and use one, be sure to check that the escape valve is clear and working every time you use it.

Next: Cusco

Rain, rain, rain...and finally sun, again

    We woke up Monday to astonishing rain. The sky is gray, and we are socked in. Sometimes the rain is really heavy, and it continued through the following night and into Tuesday. We tried to go next door to the San Blas church which the guide book says is open until noon and has significant tapestries as well as history, but they politely told us they don't do tourists - come back Tuesday for mass, if we want. 

    We walked a block up the hill instead, to the Basilica, an impressive building that legend says will never be completed. Sure enough, some sort of maintenance issue which we never saw evidence of had the entry price slashed in half. There were about a hundred stained glass windows, about half of them illustrating scenes from the life of Christ. There were uniquely Ecuadorian gargoyles around the outside - crocodiles, snakes, pangolins, monkeys, panthers, anteaters and many more indigenous animals - and alcoves for remains of some saints and doll-like effigies of others, with tables for devotional candles so that people can pray to their favourites, including the Virgin of Guadelajara, who is here on a visit, apparently.  The Basilica deserves its own photo album.

    When we got back to the hostel we were about to watch Cat in the Hat in Spanish. We haven't seen the English version, but since Roberto studied the bilingual book with me a couple of weeks ago, it seemed appropriate. Suddenly the hostel door bell rang, just as I was composing a reply email to Jean Brown, and there she was at the door. She lives only two short blocks above the basilica we'd walked to earlier. We had a chat in the common room and were able to introduce her to Dustin, who is staying at the Belmont as well for a few days before heading to Cuenca. She ended up inviting us to her condo so that Dustin could indulge his love of cooking and we could meet her friend Olivia.

    At 5 p.m. Deb and Dustin and I stepped out into the rain to go to the local market for ingredients. Our first challenge was fencing with the taxi drivers, who appear to consider the combination of rain and gringos a godsend. For a ride that would ring up 60 cents on the meter, we expected to pay the minimum $1 charge, but the first guy, outrageously, asked for $5! The next three demanded $3, and we finally settled on one driver who was willing to take us there for $2. These are all metered, placarded, officially licenced city taxis, mind you, for whom this is supposed to be illegal, and most connected by radio to their dispatch offices - apparently there's no enforcement, no sting officers or any other way to discourage the practice. You gouge for whatever you can get, with the blessing of your dispatcher. Going an even shorter distance from the market to Jean's was just as bad, until a private car honked and pulled over for us, and volunteered to take us there for a $1.50. Dustin tells us that he found that Colombian taxis were all strictly by the meter and all their goods and services prices are firm for everyone, local and tourist alike; they have been trying hard to correct a very bad image with tourists that built up over the past few decades. Ecuador seems to be happy to let their image as a tourist destination slide.

    At the market, we immediately found some incredible pork chops (much less risky than beef, which is typically very tough in S. America), and we also bought cauliflower and sweet red peppers for roasting, tomato, cucumber, avocado and red onion for a salad treat, and a pineapple. Jean made a rice dish with turmeric and other spices, and put wine and beer on the table. It was a delicious meal that we all prepared together under Chef Dustin's command, and afterward we sat in Jean's sitting room and talked about books, their families, and aspects of life in Ecuador over a little rum and coffee. 

    We walked home around ten through clear night air cleaned by the rain, downhill all the way along steep cobble streets and staircases built before there were cars in the city, through a neighbourhood gateway with the date 1929 on it, and out onto Calle Guayaquil, right across the Hermano Miguel Plaza from the Belmont.

    I got up shortly after seven this morning and went up to the rooftop kitchen to make a coffee. Elena hadn't been up to unlock doors yet, but the door to the terrace had a padlock that wasn't open so I just slid back the bolt and stepped out onto the roof. A terribly loud car alarm went off beside my ear and continued for about sixty seconds. It was on a motion detector. I ignored it, went to the kitchen and pulled loose the little piece of string that was tying that door shut, and made my coffee. Nobody scolded me, so all is good. It is a quiet, very secure hostal, not a party place at all, which is one of the reasons it is so cheap - perfect for us.

    The friends we were going to stay with again today had to bail on us. Any had said she wanted to explore the idea of sending Ecuadorian crafts and garments to Canada, and I wanted Edwin to consider making regalia clothing for the yacht clubs in Toronto, of which there are dozens, as well as tennis clubs and schools - team sports clothing, etc. He was messing around with the idea of making Univ. of Toronto shirts, but that's small potatoes compared to the market that really exists. However, Any says her mother is ill in Ibarra (her mother has Alzheimer's) and they're having another water issue in their house, this time from a broken pipe, perhaps caused by the pressure cooker that exploded in Edwin's parents' apartment. 

    When we were there the previous time they'd had a flood when the water line to Edwin's mother's frig (for the icemaker) had broken, and nobody caught the problem it until ran down to Edwin's floor. Edwin's mother's eyesight is almost gone. 

    We'll be here until Saturday, which makes me happy - staying in the Mall Jardin area seemed like a boring location to spend our last four days in Quito. Deb became very fond of Any, they got along well, and I think that's why she was really hoping we could stay with them again, but we feel quite relaxed and autonomous here at the Belmont, so for me it's not such a disappointment - except for the fact that I wanted to show Any how much Spanish I can speak now. I wasn't sure they'd be that keen to host us again - they'd already extended our first stay when our second host fell through two months ago. But no matter - we remain grateful for their hospitality and their welcome to Quito when we first arrived, and we hope we'll be able to reciprocate when they visit their son in Toronto, and help Aaron to feel at home there.

    We attended a dance performance of Tatuaje by the Ballet Nacional de Ecuador at the cultural centre. Not a great conception or choreography, but it was mercifully short, and in a very modern theatre. I was interested to notice how many young people came out to watch modern jazz ballet. We went with Jean Brown and her friend Richard. The vice-president was in attendance, a very big deal for most of the audience; and I was reminded that we have a contact in his office, a women we were supposed to stay with who works directly with him running a wheelchair distribution program - a bit odd to run such a program directly out of the VP's office, but I guess it must be very good VP PR.

    Tomorrow we'll start the day with a great coffee - found a place nearby that knows how to make a really good cup. Then we'll attend a botanical water colour exhibit nearby with Jean, and then search out a new diversion for the evening.

    Thursday: finally a sunny morning, so we climbed to the top of the hill above Los Rios to get a decent photographic view of the city. There are a few photos here. In the evening we headed to the famous church with all the gold leaf that usually costs about $7 to go inside, but they'd scheduled a free concert by the Ecuador Symphony, so entry was free to the church as well.  With all the lights it was quite stunning.  More about that in the next blog.

    On Friday had a farewell dinner with Jeannie, Maggie and Zoey. On Saturday we left for Lima and Cusco. 

    I did put out feelers to try and meet Quitenos on Couchsurfing - you'd think that would be the most logical place to find people who want to meet visitors from other countries. But Couchsurfing seems to be largely a bust here. People seem generally nervous of strangers, and don't really understand or buy the concept, although there are many members listed in the city.  My impression from my initial inquiries two months ago is that most hope it'll be useful to them if they travel themselves, but aren't that keen to host. Maybe most believe that they have little chance to travel anyway, and so the reciprocity concept doesn't quite gel for them, and they don't really want to open their home to strangers. We've had hosts who said "maybe" and then backed out. 

    In Cusco there are several who are simply blatantly advertising their hostels on the couchsurfing site. We can't even find people in Quito willing to meet for coffee and chat, as ambassadors of their city - they seem remarkably xenophobic, actually - as if the design of their houses, bulwarked and locked to the street with the courtyards as private as possible in the interior, are a mirror of their souls. The experience is very interesting, and has helped to reframe my generalized perceptions of S. American people and their values. Mind you, in the course of doing business with them, you meet many very gracious people, and Ecuadorians pride themselves on conservative dress and values; but for a rather socialist country, they appear to be actually more capitalist in personal values than Canada or other countries we've visited. Maybe they are socialist politically, hoping that it'll increase the amount of chicken in every pot, but not personally.

Next: El Dorado in Quito