Professional or honest?

Tour number 14, a LPB tour of 29 days through Peru, Chili and Bolivia. It was a good mixed group, 18 people with different ages, singles, younger and older couples, two older women traveling together and two Belgium’s traveling with their Dutch friend, the type of group I prefer.

On our first day, because of the earthquake, we continued directly to Nasca. Luckily however it was now possible to visit the famous Islas Ballestas (bow islands). I was wondering if the earthquake had damaged the ‘sand drawing’ of the ‘Candelera’ and the bows of the islands, because the centre of the earthquake must have been very close to this islands. I was happy that I couldn´t see any visible damage. However my mood changed a bit when I talked after to the women of the agency I work with in Paracas. I asked her about the local situation in Paracas, Pisco and surrounding now almost 2 months after the earthquake. She told me that they still need a lot of help. There is still a short on primer needs for live, like water, food, clothes, shelter and medication. The worst thing she told me was that there is so much corruption in distributing the help supplies that most of it doesn´t even reaches the places where it is most needed… The people who collected clothes selected first all the nice clothes for themselves. When a Spanish minister came to see if the tents that Spain had donated were sufficient, he couldn´t find any? It turned out that the governor of Pisco had kept them all for himself! Even for the famous Red Cross Pisco and surrounding don´t seem important enough to really help. Already a few days after the earthquake they distributed coupons in Paracas which the people could use to get basic food supplies. However, until the day of today these supplies never arrived. Some people even had to eat their pets to stay alive… Cynical enough some people in Paracas are more happy to see tourists than people from the Red Cross, because our money is one of the few things that can bring back the economy and really improve the live of people in Paracas and Pisco.

In Arequipa I heard that the teachers were going to organize some strikes again, because the government didn´t keep any of their promises from a few months ago. How surprising…

Walking through the streets of Arequipa, I walked into the girl from the love-couple from my Shoestring tour. We went for a drink together and she told me that they are still very much in love J

Coming into Arica, Chili, there was some other good news. My agency had decided to skip Hostel Jardin del Sol with its owner that couldn´t be trusted. We now sleep in a hostel that´s a bit more expensive, but nicer and more trustful. Even the Shoestring groups are not sleeping in Jardin del Sol any more. I guess the owner wouldn´t be happy to see me if I meet him somewhere on the streets of Arica. After all those years of working with my agency, suddenly a tour leader with not that much experience yet, causes him to lose a big customer. 

In San Pedro the Atacama we went with part of the group to an explanation about the stars around us. It was interesting, but what made it more special was the possibility to look through very strong telescopes towards the stars and the moon. On the moon we could even see the craters and with our own cameras we could take pictures of the landings spot of the first Apollo moon-lander!

The Salar tour was also beautiful again.

Uyuni is still expanding, because of the new gold found in the mines near the town of San Christobal. Only there is still not enough electricity and gas for the amount of people who live in or visit Uyuni.

In Potosí the student protests were finally over and we went to a small circus.  It was interesting to see how much they do with so less people and how primitive the safety rules were. For only one Euro, it felt a bit like going back in time.

When we were in Sucre the France group of the television program ´Peking Express´ arrived there and also this tour was organized by my ´old´ colleague Dirko. He keeps on doing well.

This time we all flew from Sucre to La Paz, instead of the long boring bus ride. In La Paz I went with a big part of the group climbing up the Chalcantaya mountain. However the night before it had been raining a lot in La Paz. Rain in La Paz, usually means snow in the mountains, so there was now a lot of snow on the mountain slopes of Chalcantaya. Because of this our mini-vans couldn´t reach the Refugio and we had to walk for about one and a half our more through the snow. It was a great walk, in a white landscape with beautiful views over La Paz and the mountain ranges around! Only some of us (including me) didn´t use enough protection against the strong sun reflecting in the snow, so we burned our faces a little L It was worth it anyway.

On our way back to Peru there was a blockade close to the border of Desagradero (a protest about the competition between bus companies at the border), so we had to go by the border of Copacabana. I asked our local agent if we could stop for two, or two and a half hours in Copacabana. He told me that two hours were ok, but than he told the bus driver, who had already another ride after us, that we would only stop for one hour?! This together with his strange excuse why we couldn´t get a discount on our flight tickets from Sucre to La Paz, while he didn´t had to arrange (pay?) a private bus for us, makes his reliability questionable. Is he another lying contact to get rid off? The only problem is that his sister in Potosí is always been good to me. Her tours are good and she keeps her promises, at least to me.

Back in Cusco I had a promise to fore fill so on Monday I went to the office of the director of Machu Picchu. I told him about the dangerous steps  that you have to go down if you decent Wayna Picchu mountain. He knew the route and understood what I was talking about. He told me that in two days he would go to Machu Picchu and than he would have a look at the steps and route himself. Lets hope he keeps his promise. Because I´m working illegal in Peru, I can´t complain to much.

When we wanted to do our tour through the Secrete Valley we had to leave earlier, because there were some protests against the rising prizes for food and gasoline. Apparently the falling price of the dollar causes a lot of prices within Peru to rise.

Then it was the end of the tour. A tour during which I had a lot of fun again, but which wasn´t easy. There were a lot of independent people in this group and some of them, including the two from Belgium, were difficult for me to understand. They wanted all the information, but they also wanted to be as independent as possible and yet I had the feeling that some of them suspected me to spend more time with ´the other part´ of the group and didn´t really liked that… I like to give people as much freedom as possible and I will always provide them with the necessary information, but off course the more you tell me, the more you ask me, the more I can try to help you. I still can´t answer questions I don´t know.

Yes I did try to give these people what I thought they wanted, but at the end I didn´t receive a tip from some of them, so probably this didn´t work out. Luckily the others of the group made up for this, but moments like this sometimes make me wonder who´s more stupid, me or most of my colleagues? I still think that´s not right for a tour leader to earn money on all the tours he/she sells, but I´m one of the few. It is so easy to ask a few dollar more on each tour and some of my colleagues make about 500US$ commission during a tour of a month. After that they receive 400/500US$ tip, because most group members don´t know how much commission they already paid and then they still have their salary of about 40/45US$ each day they work. Yep, who´s more stupid?

I might still not be the most professional tour leader, but at least I can still say that I really like my job and try to be as honest as I can be within this job. I still have hope that in the end this is what will pay me back. And apparently women also seem to find it attractive, not always easy but not bad I guess ;-)

I´m now back in Baños and within a few days will start my next tour of two months. Up till this tour I´ve always been lucky with the weather on all my tours, but for my next tour I will really going to need all my luck during the last 3 weeks in Bolivia, Puno and Cusco and surrounding. Lets see my luck is strong enough…

Other short news:

The new prints of my book are ready and I like the improvement J

I now have an account on Facebook, to make sure I don´t stay behind ;-)

Merazonia is still calm and they jus finished the metal framework of a big bird cage.

I just read on the internet that a couple of hours ago there was a heavy earthquake,7.7 in the north of Chili, about 60 miles west of Calama (which is our stopover on the route to San Pedro)! So far they think that 2 people got killed and more than 100 injured, but this could easily have been much more if the houses in Chili were as weak as in Pisco and surrounding. Apparently it was again a long earthquake, like in Pisco and it was even felt quite strong in La Paz. Lets hope there will be no more casualties.

Saludos,

Martijn

P.S. Two days later15-11-2007, there was an other earthquake of 6.7 on the scale of Richter, this time east, south east of Ecuador. As far as I know there weren´t any victims and about the real damage there never came a lot of info. I guess the area was not important enough…