An interesting tour…

My 15th tour as a tour leader was a rare one. It was my third tour of two months and like the first it was again a group of 18 very different people. However this is about the only comprehension I can make between these tours. The first one was an easy tour and easy group. They could even eat together and would sit mixed around the table from the beginning until the end of the tour. This first tour I didn´t know anything special to write about. But this tour I don´t know where to begin…

It all started with a plane from Iberia, which landed next to the airstrip at the airport of Quito. The director of the airport decided then that no plane of Iberia was aloud to land on his airport. My group would fly with Iberia, so I was wondering how this would work out?

Thursday evening the 15^th of November. I was preparing for my tour and had the television on, when I suddenly saw on the news that just 10 minutes ago there had been an earthquake of 4.2 on the scale of Richter in the south of Ecuador and apparently not long before there had been one of 6.5 in the north of Peru.

The next day there was also a new one of 4.2 around Pisco. I wonder how this will go during the tour?

Saturday night, or better Sunday morning, because it was already 0:30 am when my group finally arrived. Only I didn´t see any big bags? They had a delay of more than 6 hours, because they first had to land on Guayaguil. But because they had less than an hour to switch planes, it was to short time to bring al their luggage over as well. Iberia promised that their luggage will arrive with the plane of 10:30am, so let´s hope they´re right.

After looking very well through al the luggage that arrived and counting a few times, I still ended up 3 bags short. Where are they? Iberia told me that these bags would still be in Guayaguil and that they will arrive tonight or tomorrow morning. They would be send to our hotel in Otavalo.

The missing bags finally arrived 3 days later when we were back in Quito and al 3 of them had been broken open and looked through! There were missing perfume, shoes, battery chargers, and cameras! After a long discussion Iberia Quito still didn´t want to do anything about this. They told us to go to their main office in Madrid. Not a very good start for a tour of two months. But to stay positive, statistically seen during a tour of two months, always something gets stolen so let´s hope this is it…

On the way to our lodges, close to Tena we had to pass a small landslide caused by the rain, but during our days in the jungle we had almost no problems with the weather.

Ones, around 01:00am we did feel our cabin shaking? We thought that maybe it was the alcohol, but next day we heard that there had been a small earthquake again.

In Baños I looked in the newspaper to find more about this shock, but apparently it was to small. I did find an article that said that one day after we left Quito there had felt a record amount of rain in the city. Lucky we left on time.

The same evening I was eating in Casa Hood when the owner came to tell us that there had been a preventive warning on the radio. The Tungurahua volcano showed more activity than normal. Probably nothing would happen, but it was advised to pack your most important things together and keep them close, so you can leave immediately when necessary. Apparently this warning wasn´t unusual, but if they warn the citizens of Baños, I may as well give the message to my group.

 Luckily the Tungurahua stayed calm during our time in Baños, but this couldn´t prevent the ´explosion´ within the group. According to the rumors, because I was to busy trying to arrange some taxi´s and didn´t notice anything, one of the group members was a little to quick in trying to get her bags out of the bus and didn´t pay enough attention to her surrounding. Because of that she stepped on the bag of another group member who reacted very strong with some curses. After this they both acted a bit like children, they didn´t speak with each other anymore, avoided and ignored each other. But worse was, that part of the group joined this fight between these two women. This was a real group-killer. It already wasn´t a strong group, actually it was more a group of separate individuals and couples who travelled together. This doesn´t have to be wrong, when they would really mind their own business and didn´t bother the other group members. Some of them could really do this, while others did what they liked, but blamed the other for doing the same. They called each others differences a-social behavior, while they didn´t do much to help each other and often tried to get the best for as less as possible. Even one of the most social persons of the group wasn´t always welcome either. This was because she talked to much (sounds familiar?) and had a tick for making little noises. Let´s see how all of this goes for the next seven weeks…

First we went to Riobamba, where I finally had time to visit the local Thursday market of Guamote. This market turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It was bigger than I thought, there was a lot to see and there were almost no tourists.

Also in Cuenca I now had time to visit the local markets in the surrounding. We first took a bus to the town that was the farrest away. This town is called Sigsig and known for making hats of tortora reed. Like the Panama hats. After that we took the local bus to Chordelec, a town known for making (silver) jewelry. From there it was about half an hour walking to Gualaceo, where we ate roast pig with the locals and took the bus back to Cuenca.

In Vilcabamba I climbed with an American girl the Cerro Mandango a steep mountain with a strange shape and small riches. It wasn´t always a save route to walk, but it was a beautiful tour.

In Huanchaco we felt another earthquake! It was a small one of 4.2, but the centre was close to Trujilio.

The next special tour I had in Nasca with a friend of my. She asked me if I knew Cahuachi. But when I asked her how that tastes, she told me that these are some ruins about 25km outside of Nasca. She had been there a few times and said that they are worth visiting. She thought that she knew the way, so around 16:15 (because of the light) we took a taxi. But somewhere, halfway in the dessert we lost our way and got stuck in the sand with our small Daewoo taxi. We had to get some sand away, puss the car and repeat this a couple of times before we could leave again. All right we tried another route. But this road didn´t seem to go anywhere either and the sun went more and more down… When the driver suddenly noticed some technical problems on his car, we decided that we had to go back. It is a bit stupid to get stuck on a small dessert road, miles away from the closest paved road and on an evening that I was suppose to have a bus at 23:00h to Arequipa.

After they left the group seemed to be a bit calmer. Were there in Nasca still some verbal fights about the high tour prices and the groups different opinions about each other, now it seemed that all of them, for ones, had something in common. They all felt at least a bit sorry for the couple and maybe had a bit of fear for what the altitude could do to them… Maybe the unexpected view (in this time of the year) of condors was also a good moment for the whole group, but I guess we will never know what brought the group a little closer.

This was good, because on the Salar tour in Bolivia, we would have to spent 7 meals together, 3 days together in 4 jeeps, 2 nights in 3 dormitories and one night celebrating Christmas. Remember my last mail?

It was a strange but unexpected ok Christmas Night together. I had bought a Christmas tree and a very small present for every member of the group. They decorated the tree and I got some presents as well J Next day we used the tree and a Christmas hat to make special and funny photo´s on the big white salt-flat of Uyuni!

Yes, except for some sick people the Salar tour went all right and didn´t became the disaster I was afraid for. But after the tour again something seemed to have changed in the group. However now the change came more from people I didn´t expect it from. Maybe it was because before they could easily avoid the people they didn´t like and being happy doing their own things, but now they had to spend 3 full days around people with a total different way of enjoying their journey?

All right, so I´m back in Bolivia. The last time I was here, there were some protests going on about changing the location of the government back from La Paz to the real capital of Bolivia, Sucre. They have been discussing this already for years, but apparently they now take it more serious. About a week ago there had been some heavy protests, with even (car) fires in the streets of Sucre! Luckily it was calm now and the predictions were that it would stay calm until after the holidays. But for the new year it seems that Bolivia can expect a lot of problems. Not only about changing the location of the government, but also about a new constitution which is now only approved by 3 (La Paz, Oruro and Potosí) out of the 9 provinces of Bolivia. Santa Cruz, the biggest and I guess richest province of Bolivia is against. The new constitution will cost the wealthier people of Bolivia more money and because Santa Cruz is already talking for years about separation from the poor part of Bolivia, they use this new feeling of distrust as a new argument. It seems that they also promised Sucre that this city will be aloud to be the new capital of the new Bolivia, according to the story, because of its history. Four other provinces seem to prefer to belong to this richer part of Bolivia, so it is 6 against 3 now…

But there is also hope for the 3 poor provinces (if I may call them like that), because there still seem to be a lot of rich minerals under their soil. Now the mining activity is increasing, more money goes to the infrastructure of this area. This brings more live to the area and not only that, but good roads will also bring more lazy rich tourists and money. And maybe, maybe, if Evo Morales really wants to keep his promises and tries to get more money from the mining- and foreign companies and distributes it in an honest way over the country, yes then there is hope… But hey, this is Bolivia, here they say: ‘Total possible, nada securo´.

It is a phrase which seems to fit this group as well. Like when I offered to celebrate New Years Eve together. Nobody was interested, but in the end we went with 12 of us and the other 5 told me that they were interested, but knew they wouldn´t be welcome within part of the group. The New Years dinner was a bit disappointing, but the party after was ok.

The second time within half a year I´m with New Years Day in Tiawanaku, only this time it is according to our calendar. It was very quite and I think that it was the first time that I´ve seen Guiney pigs on the site. I also think that it is the first time that I´ve seen the ground so wet. This made me realize that we had entered the raining season and still didn´t have had very bad weather, even now when I´m standing on this site and the dark clouds seem to stay at a save distance.

Maybe I said this to soon, because next day we started our bicycle tour on the Death Road with snow and rain. But on the other hand, I do have to admit that I think that this ads to the adventure of this tour. It makes it more special to say that you started this tour with snow and rain and with thick clothes on a bike, but that you ended with swimming shorts in the outdoor swimming pool of a luxury hotel. The second bit of rain fell on the island Taquile disturbed a bit the tour of some group members.

In all of our days in Cusco we only had one early morning with about an hour of rain. The morning that we arrived in Aguas Calientes the sun just came trough, but it had been raining a lot and part of another Koning Aap group, who arrived one day before us, decided to leave the site of Machu Picchu earlier than planned. The next day the sun didn´t really came through, but at least we could visit Machu Picchu without rain.

When I think about the weather on this tour I can say: “Mission accomplished J”. Unfortunately I can´t say this about my quest for getting a saver way to climb to the top of Huayna Picchu Mountain. Not really unexpected it turned out that the director of Machu Picchu, after my last visit, hadn´t done anything about the safety on Huayna Picchu, so I decided to visit him again. Especially after I met a professional guide on the Huayna Picchu, who guided his group up on the steep stairs and down through the little tunnel, the same way I recommend to my passengers. He told me that about a year ago he had seen somebody falling down from above and taking 3 people with him. Nobody could hold on to something and they all got some serious wounds. He also told me that he and some other guides of Machu Picchu went together to the directors office, but the director of M. P. didn´t want to change anything. This makes me even more determined to get this route more secure.

So next day I went to the directors office again. He remembered me, but told me that he could do nothing about it. The direction of the way up and down was invented by some specialists and a handrail wasn´t esthetical. But what about laying down just one thick and strong rope, only connected at the top ends of the most dangerous parts of the route? You have at least something to hold on. First the director said that there was a risk that when the connection of the rope could break (a connection to a mountain of rock?) while someone is using it (then it becomes the directors responsibility…), but later he promised to have a look at it next time when he would visit Machu Picchu. I don´t believe him anymore, so now I´m going to use different ways to get this problem fixed. The goal is to get more security on three points on the way up and down, let´s see how far I get.

Something else that didn´t really work out on this tour was keeping everyone happy. I got the complains that I wasn´t always polite enough towards some people or didn´t do enough to make their vacation nice. Well I have to admit than sometimes I reacted to sharp, which isn´t always fare or professional. I´m just not a very good actor yet. If you treat me on a certain way, you can almost certain expect I will treat you similar. If you notorious not listen well or read the info I give, I get shorter with my answers. And then there are also certain types of people I just can´t stand, like people who always try to be first in line and/or think that their more important than others; people who feel sorry for themselves and try to use others to feel better or people who are cheap. I have respect for people who are careful with money, I´m the same, but I can´t stand people who try to be cheap over the back of others, or notoriously complain about the costs of something. Either you don´t accept the prize and service, or you pay for it, get what you paid for and don´t complain anymore.

A bit of the behavior above I can take, it comes with the job, but sometimes I just say what´s on my mind. I guess this is something I need to work on, but this tour I also had another example:

It involves the same woman who cursed the other woman after the first week of the tour. I have/had something against her behavior. I couldn´t help to show this a bit, but tried to ignore it and not start a real argument with her. Until the last week, she went to far and I took the fight. This little verbal fight made both of us clear that we have a strong character and not always the same opinion. I guess we will never be friends, but at least now we could be honest towards each other and show more respect for our differences.

It is interesting to find out that being more polite for my job, apparently sometimes can work the opposite in creating respect for each other. Maybe if I had started this fight/ discussion earlier with her we would have gone along better during the tour.

I also got the complain that I didn´t care enough about the group, most former group members will be surprised about this comment, but in a way it is justified.

In the beginning I did offer to be around seven in the hotel for whoever had questions and/or wanted to eat together, but soon it was clear that some people preferred to do their own thing and already within 10 days it was clear that this bunch of people would never form one group.

It is not that it are all bad people, although some of them are really difficult characters, most of them I have no problem with. No it is more the combination of al of these characters together, the lack of respect that some showed for the differences of others and for some group members, the absence of being used to think about the people around you. This is what caused the trouble in this tour. I think that if you put most of the group members separate in different groups, they would act as different characters. Just the mix of these people together turned out to be a very bad cocktail, which couldn´t be fixed from the beginning.

I decided not to force anything. I wanted to avoid to create a group within a group and instead of focusing on the group aspect, I decided to focus more on the individual whishes of the group. I also put the initiative with the group. I told them what I would do and gave them the possibilities of doing things together or separate as well with the tours as with eating together. Sometimes I would invite myself for dinner, but mostly I would wait to be invited or not…

It is the same for having fun or not during this tour. I admit, it wasn´t an easy group, but not having fun during your vacation not only depends on others. Of course they/we are part of the tour, but especially during this tour, there´s a lot you can/ have to do enjoy your own vacation.

About my opinion? Well after the first 10 days, I didn´t dare to hope 45 days later most people told me that they were contend and/or even happy about the way I guided this tour. Of course there are always some things I can improve about my own work, but these were accepted. Nobody is perfect. In the end there were only two persons who didn´t like my part in this tour and two with mixed feelings about that.

Yes, everybody agreed that it wasn´t the group they were hoping for, but most of them told me that they still had a beautiful tour and a good vacation. This isn´t perfect, but with 18 people in a group like this, not bad either.

For myself I look back on a challenging and very interesting tour of two months. And looking back on the year 2007, I can say that it was again a very interesting year with lots of adventures and new experiences.

Officially I´ve been working for 229 days and 5496 hours, unofficially only a very little part of it was really working, most of the time I just enjoyed my own way of living. I´ve seen new places, done new things, and accomplished some challenges. I´ve also experienced some bad things, made new friends and maybe enemies, but as long as I have more good experiences and make more friends than enemies, no complains. It´s all part of live. The type of live I enjoy most.

Saludos and gracias to everybody who is (been) part of this ;--)

I also read that only a few days after we crossed the border from Bolivia to Peru, the protests in Bolivia expanded and the roads to the border were closed.