When trust is lost, a challenging tour.

From the moment I entered in Latin America, I´ve already written a lot about trust and the absence of it. During this journey it was very difficult to find out who was speaking the truth and who could be trusted, this makes my job a lot more difficult.

Imagine what happens if you can´t relay on the ticket-man/assistant in the bus, the doctors in a hospital, a bus ticket office in Puno, my own agency, the train to A.C., the airline company for the flight to Lima, and if even agencies you worked with before suddenly don´t respect a reservation or try to charge you more for something with a set price? Even my luck with the weather seemed not so sure anymore…

What about my group members, are they reliable? Do they leave a tip in their room for the housekeeping? Is their reservation secure, even if it is not paid yet, or do I have to start asking directly for the money?

And what about the tour leader, can he be trusted? Why is he not offering all the possible tours, why is he not telling everything?

In a tour where trust is lost, is it smart to organize a new Inca Jungle Trail for a group member, with an unknown agency? Is it smart to offer a tour to Tress Cruces, more than 110km on a dirt road away from Cusco? You will read it in the following story.

Luckily this time Iberia was allowed to land on the airport of Quito and even the rain from the last months had left town and changed places with a bright sun.

On advice of previous groups I had made a list with list with safety and health recommendations, so my first information speech wouldn´t be to long and still every-one would be well informed. This seem to work out well, the speech was well received and with my paper-system the final bill was paid before we got the actual bill.

Yep, the tour started well, but then happens the following story:

The next day at the police office they told me that the theft happened close to Quito, so I had to do my declaration in Quito! Ah, come on we have a tight travel schedule, you´re not going to do much about the theft, we have no hope in finding back what was stolen and we only need these official papers to declare our stolen things at our insurance. Can you please help us? Luckily he was helpful.

In Quito one of my passengers asked me to go with her to a hospital, because she felt a strange pain in the side of her body. She was a bit worried, because she had already been a few weeks in Cusco, where she and some of her friends had spent a few days in hospital, because they had salmonella. Luckily the doctor couldn´t really find anything special, so his diagnose was that she probably had parasites.

This time there was no landslide on our way to Tena, maybe there even started a new relation between a passenger and a group member ;-) But on our first day in the jungle, during our tour to Amazoonico, as far as I remember, it was my first tour/excursion during which it rained all day. Where´s my luck with the weather? I also heard that the managers of Amazoonico would stop their work there and look for something to start on their own L It´s a shame for the animal sanctuary, but I understand that it is difficult to keep on putting a lot of energy in something that isn´t yours and doesn´t work exactly the way you want.

In the evening we drunk wine and played cards together and the next day the weather was good again.

In Baños also one of my group members, who doesn´t speak a word of Spanish and not much English either arranged on his own a private tour along the waterfalls. He even goes fishing, eats his own fish afterwards. He has a great day and great stories to tell the others during the night. That´s the spirit of a real traveler, those are the people I like to have in my tours J

But unfortunately it was not all fun in and after Baños. We had no fight this time, but after Baños two people started to ignore part of the group a bit. At least one of them did this by choice and with not more than one to follow this is a shame, but not much of a problem for the behavior of the rest of the group.

Also in Baños there was now a woman who broke her wrist! When I was doing a ´dangerous´ rafting trip, she was just walking up a slippery trail on the mountain behind Baños, when she slide and fell on her wrist. It was so seriously broken that it needed to be sett and she needed metal pens through her casting in her arm, if she wanted to continue her tour. Luckily she wasn´t insured with the Ecuadorian health insurance, because then she would have had to wait until next day and be lucky to arrive within the first ten visitors, because after the first ten you will have to pay for your own treatment or come back the next day. No lucky she has a Dutch health care insurance and the (for locals expensive) private clinic in Baños could directly sett her wrist and put temporarily casting around it. While they did this I spoke with one of the other doctors. He told me an interesting story about the elite in Ecuador. He told me that they had collected about 500 million dollar to support a campaign against president Correa. However this doctor belongs to the more rich citizens of Ecuador and he had to pay more taxes than in the past, he also had to admit that he could see that the money was spent well. Especially in the poor regions of the countries there came more and more facilities to educate and train the un-schooled people. This is very good for the future, but hopefully people don´t get blind for this with the higher prices for bread and some other basics. The tax has to come from somewhere.

The woman decided to continue the tour, so we went to a recommended private hospital in Riobamba to put professionally those two metal pens in her arm, they couldn´t do this in Baños.

Also in Riobamba I had trouble to find out if the train to Alausi (and Nariz del Diablo) would ride or not, if there was a landslide or not and if people were aloud to sit on the roof again or not? Finally I got a message that yes the train would ride and yes people were aloud to sit on the roof, only limited. There was just one problem it wasn´t possible to reserve the tickets, so next day I had to wait very early at the ticket office to buy the tickets I needed. There I bumped into another problem, they said that no-one was aloud to buy more two tickets a person and I needed 5 tickets. Other people who were waiting started to call some family and friends, but the people were I had to buy the tickets for were still on and other tour to a hacienda… I tried to call an old contact and he told me to see what he could do, so I also asked him to help two of the other people who were waiting.

However when the office opened they had enough friends around and we found out that Ecuadorians were aloud to buy 3 ticket. They decided to help me instead. Some of them bought 3 tickets and gave one to me, so I only had to buy 2 tickets. I wanted to give them a tip as thank, but they didn´t accept it and said they were happy to be helpful. End well, all well J

No, by the end of the day I got a new phone call from my contact. He told me that there had been another landslide and the train for tomorrow was cancelled. I could return my tickets and get the money back.

In Cuenca the diagnose of parasites turned out to be wrong, it was probably a nerve between her ribs that was hurting the girl from Cusco. So much for our confidence in the luxury clinic in Quito. Also I caused a permanent lost of confidence from the girl who already separated from the group after Baños. The cause was a private favor I arranged through a friend and originally only for one group member. He had asked me to try to arrange private salsa lessons and next to that I went looking for salsa classes, which part of the group could join. I did find a private teacher, but couldn´t find a salsa school. The teacher was a friend of my friend in Cuenca and luckily she and the guy who asked me to arrange the les agreed that more people would join in. Everybody happy, but then those others shouldn´t start complaining that the les wasn´t what they expected. Sorry, it wasn´t mend to be for you in the first place. It was a favor from a friend to one group member, who asked me for this. Should I have told him that he couldn´t have private salsa classes because I couldn´t find a salsa school for the rest of the group? I didn´t know before that this friend had her own little school. It is cynical that if I would´ve done just my job, I would have told my group that I couldn´t find a salsa school in Cuenca, but now I used the service of a friend to make at least one person happy and got into a fight with others…

In Vilcabamba I got my luck with the weather back, while the group before us had two days of rain, we had two days with great sunny weather and good possibilities for the group to relax. The owner also offered us a night of free drinking, which could be great to celebrate the birthday of one of the group members J

Unfortunately I then received a message from my agency that there was no more place available on the Backpacker train to Aguas Calientes?! There were only a few places left on the more expensive Vistadome train, which would leave from Ollantaytambo at 7:20 am and would come back the next day at 12:26 pm. So not only more expensive, but also less time on Machu Picchu, not a nice message to tell the group.

Also the girl from Cusco received an important message which changed a lot…

She found out that a friend of her, who had also been in a hospital in Cusco, had just died! Cause unknown…

She asked me to arrange flights for her to go to Cusco as soon as possible. The next morning she left early and the next evening I got into a discussion with some of my passengers about the way how I recommended to spent less time in Nasca and more in Arequipa. I should have explained more about this offer, but it is not my fault that most of my group already agreed with my without asking for more info, that´s just showing confidence in my opinion. According to some I now should have explained more about everything we had done so far. So this time there were no complains that I told too much, but that I told too less. Well, so be it, it´s a shame but I have my reasons and I can´t make everybody happy. Experience has learned me that most people on vacation don´t want to get to much options, it makes them nervous and tired to choose what they want to do, but especially what they can´t do and what they will miss. In my experience it is better to limit the options to the most popular ones and the people who want to do something different, they will come to me on their own (or I will tell them separate if I think they should do something else). The people who don´t, don´t know what they might be missing either. Two group members who heard the discussion agreed with me, but I do think that for the future I may have to try to find another middle way in telling not too much, but also not too less…

It is always interesting to see how groups form and change during a tour and how some people play (on purpose, or not) an important role in this. When one of these ´key persons´ leave the group this could and did change the group. Not directly for everybody, but with one dominant group member less, the other got more attention again. Small groups within the group changed and started too separated more from each other. Unfortunately there wasn´t much I could do about this, because I had just lost the confidence of some of my group members. How would this go further in the tour? Will it change again if the girl from Cusco comes back?

In Trujillo we went with the whole group to the ruins and temples of Huaca de la Luna.

For me it was the first time that I went to this site and I have to admit that I was impressed. There was more to see than I expected and it was a nice half day tour, not in the last because we had a good guide. She also told us that recently they had discovered new ruins about 40 km south east of Chiclayo. These ruins are called Ventarrón and are estimated to be about 10.000 years old, one of the oldest structures in South America! Maybe a new attraction to visit?

In Lima the ´Cusco girl´ came back in the group, this time with her boyfriend who had been sick as well and though that it would be safer to travel a few days with the security of a group. Their presence didn´t change much in the group yet, but we were complete now and almost halfway, so time to make a fresh start.

We had to leave early to Ica, because later on some roads would be blocked to guaranty the safety of many ministers and presidents who came to join the APEC (Foro de cooperacion Economica Asia Pasifico, an economical conference between the countries along the Pacific Ocean and Asia) conference in Lima, the 13^th to the 16^th of May.

Unfortunately leaving early couldn´t prevent that we got stuck in a traffic jam on our way to Paracas and Islas Ballestas. Almost five hours we had to wait until they had cleaned the road from an accident with a trailer!

This second part of info brought also the reservation for the train to Machu Picchu back in the picture. We do have to reserve and pay much more in Holland for a flight over the Nasca Lines, while they still sell cheap tickets on the day we arrive in Nasca, but we have to wait with reserving our train tickets to M.P., with limited space, until we are in Ecuador? And the worst, both reservations turn in the end out to be unsecure…

We ended up that 6 of my group members couldn´t fly that day, but everyone would go that night to Arequipa. Four of them refused to leave Nasca without seeing the lines, so I had to try to change their bus tickets. A lot of busses were already full, because of the weekend and the APEC conference, but with a bit of luck we found just enough seats to bring us the next day to Arequipa. To push my luck a bit more and to try to find an answer on the bad service we received from the flight company (the one which used to be reliable…), I tried to arrange a longer exclusive flight which wouldn´t only fly over the Nasca Lines, but also the less know Palpa Lines. This worked out well and the 4 group members were more or less content now.

Until the next day; we left a bit later because of some clouds again, but as soon as they were gone we went with the second plane. However, just when we had seen the wale and the astronaut the clouds came back and we were surrounded by a white thick blanket! Not everyone was happy about this and maybe I shouldn´t have told that about a week ago a plane had crashed and killed 5 tourists and the pilot. When our pilot found out that he couldn´t fly out of the clouds he decided to fly above hem. I thought this was a pretty view as well and together with another group member we even saw some sort of a rainbow circular around the shadow of the plane that was projected on the clouds. Unfortunately I realized to late how special this was to make a picture of it L

Three out of the four didn´t like their cloudy experience, so in the end only one of them flew a second time, this time without problems.

In Arequipa I found out that the love-couple from the Shoestring group are now no more than friends. It turned out to be to difficult to keep a long distance relation L

We also found out that the woman with the broken wrist got a big infection from the metal pens! Apparently this wasn´t done well from the beginning, so now they had to take the pens out and the casting away to cure the infection. I wouldn´t bore you with the whole story, but part of it I feel needed to explain how inefficient the local healthcare in Peru is. It was the first time that we came back, after the operation during which they had taken the metal pens away, the infected wound needed to be cleaned again and we probably still had to pay part of the bill for this.

I had called before and they told us that we could show up at 17:30 and the doctor would be there for us. But when we arrived and waited about 10 minutes next to his office, his friendly assistance showed up and told us that we that we had to pay first for our consult. All right the pay-counter is just in front of us, so no problem. Only he didn´t want to give us the bill before we had a registration number from the desk above. When I told him that we were already registrated from the operation before and that we probably still had to pay a part of the bill, he said that that was different, actually he wasn´t really sure what I was talking about, while it was the same guy we paid two days before. We had to get one floor up, wait in line again to get registrated, walk down again and wait in line again to pay for our consult. When it was our turn the guy had also finally found our rest-bill from the operation. Now it was suddenly possible to pay this bill direct. But it was wrong, so we refused, now he didn´t want to give us the bill for the consult anymore. We convinced him to give us that bill first, so when the doctor would help us, he would have time to check that other bill again. The doctor checked the patient and her wound, but we needed to buy cleaning stuff and medication first before he could clean the wound. He wrote us a list of what we needed to buy for now and the next 5 days. This time we had to go outside the building to go to a pharmacy, but if we could first pay the bill of the operation now. This time the bill looked correct and luckily there was no line to wait in. In the pharmacy it turned out that our bill for the medication was too high, so if we could pay this first at the pay-desk inside the hospital?! With this new receive we had to go back to the pharmacy again, get the medication and finally we could go back to the doctors office to clean the wound. The wound turned out to be quit dirty again, so the doctor told us that it was best to get it cleaned every day within the next 5 days. That will be challenging, especially the last 2 days in the dessert of Chile and Bolivia, but it should be

workable. In Chile the clinics were luckily much better organized than the one in Arequipa. They had their own medical equipment and understood that it is better to first help a patient, before you ask for money.

In the evening some people went to look at the stars and moon again and now they even managed to make pictures of Saturnus and its rings! End well, all well?

No, I guess that wasn´t allowed yet. First we had to wait an hour and a half because our private bus to Bolivia broke down, than they asked for my guiding license again at the border of Bolivia and on the salt flat of Uyuni I suddenly missed one of our jeeps???

We waited a moment at Cactus Island and when I decided to send my driver back, the other jeep suddenly arrived. It turned out that the same woman from the wrist had suffered from an unknown attack?! It looked like an epileptic attack, but she had told me nothing about this before? We took one of our 4 jeeps and together with 2 of her friends we drove her in about 75 minutes to a clinic in Uyuni. She didn´t know what had just happened to her, but luckily she stayed stable during this ride.

We arrived in Uyuni around 11am and the doctor diagnosed that she had liquid in her lungs, or better said she suffered from  High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE). This is a very dangerous disease that can kill you if you don´t respond in time. It can occur if people assent to quick and sleep at night more than 500m higher than when they started in the morning. Yes, this is an assent speed which most tour agencies don´t respect, but which most tourist would probably not pay for either when they choose their tour… Only if you are sensitive to it, (something that isn´t predictable and doesn´t depend on age, or even condition) this can cause HAPE or other High Altitude sicknesses. The doctor checked her oxygen level in her blood and found out that it was about 65 points, while it has to be at least 96! For an hour the woman got treated with oxygen from a big bottle and she also got some medication to fight the liquid in her lungs.

The recommendation when some-one suffers a serious form of HAPE, like this woman, is to let them descent as soon as possible to an altitude, preferable below 2000m. When I tried to arrange this with the insurance of the patient her friends and the assistant of the doctor stayed with her. When I came back I heard that she had suffered another attack, but still after an hour of oxygen the doctor said that she could do an hour without now. All right he´s the doctor and he told me that last week he had just treated a Japanese patient with the same disease.

However after 45min. the patient suffered a new attack and the oxygen level in her blood had dropped until 46 points! Below 40 it can cause permanent brain damage! She needed to go back on oxygen again. I had to arrange things for the group, call the insurance again and try to get in contact with a hospital in Santa Cruz (450m altitude). I finally got a doctor on the line who could arrange a flight from Uyuni to S.C. and who also told me that the woman needed to stay on oxygen. When I came back there was a new oxygen bottle in the room, because the first one was empty, but she was off the oxygen again? All right this guy is still a doctor and I´m just a tour guide. When I was talking with her and her friends I noticed that she started to act like not around again. I looked for the doctor, who was helping another patient and couldn´t be disturbed, but we couldn´t wait anymore. Her behavior became slowly worse, so I put the oxygen on myself. I remembered that he had put it on 5dl. She responded immediately and calmed down. I told her friends to try to keep the oxygen on, no matter what the doctor said. Later I found out that it was possible that there would be not enough oxygen in Uyuni to keep her permanent on… I called the doctor in Santa Cruz again to hurry up, but because bad lines of communication between Holland and Bolivia, a big part of this communication first had to go through me, which slowed things down a lot, but luckily it was possible to communicate from Bolivia to Holland, because without this we would have a bigger problem… I asked the doctor in S.C. to talk with the doctor in Uyuni and to tell him not to take off the oxygen again. When I came back in the clinic the doctor told me that it would be better to keep the patient permanent on the oxygen now (I guess he received the call ;-). All right, with the lines of communication and the necessarity of flight permissions, it took until around 8pm before everything was arranged. Tomorrow around 11am the patient would fly with a medical plane to S.C.. I asked for the bill, so we wouldn´t have to hurry tomorrow morning and he came with an extremely high (for Bolivia) bill of 645 US$, for a day of treatment, some medicine and some oxygen (in comprehension, about a year ago I paid only 90 US$ for 3 treatments to fix a broken teeth in a good private dental clinic). All right lets not argue now, she still has to stay over night. It´s time to let things go, time to let her sleep in the clinic, with a medical assistant next to her and permanent on oxygen. Let´s hope there is enough, but she´s now in a clinic, I have the responsibility for 17 people more and there is not much more that I can do for her. Time to eat pizza with the group at Minute-man.

Next morning the friends and I went by the patient to say goodbye before we would go to Potosí. When we got into the room I noticed that it was still the same bottle from last night (which, when I asked, would only have oxygen until 2am) and the assistant put the oxygen back on… But the patient looked much better and I decided not to say anything in order not to worry anyone. There wasn´t much we could do about it.

Up till Potosí things within the group dynamic hadn´t changed much yet, but a slow change was already visible. Now the injured woman was gone I also found out that I had missed some things within the group, because apparently I had been to busy with taking care of her. It is interesting to keep this in mind for the future. In Potosí and later in Sucre more changes in the group followed. It was clear that the friends of the sick woman felt some kind of relieve that they didn´t had to take care of her anymore and it became also clear that some girls got to knew each other a bit better and this part of the group started to form a bit like after the first week again. A good change if you ask me.

Unfortunately we now got two other sick people. At over 4000m high in the streets of Potosí everyone feels a short of breath, but these two felt really weak and one of them had a bad cough as well. I also received a disturbing phone call from the sick woman who was now in Santa Cruz. Apparently one of the doctors had told her that she was good enough recovered that she could travel again? So she had already booked a ticket to fly from S.C. (450m) to Sucre (2790m altitude) to join the group again. It was good to hear that she felt better again, but I wasn´t really happy with the idea to get her back in the group. I can handle it if she gets another attack, but I´m sure that some people would be shocked. I had already heard that one person had lost her mother during a similar attack… Since this is difficult to discuss over the telephone, especially when some doctor says that´s ok, I decided to wait until she arrived and main well I would send an e-mail to a Dutch doctor who is specialized in high altitude sicknesses. If he couldn´t talk sense into her, I would ask the group for permission if they wanted her back or not. In the end in my job the group goes before the individual. Luckily, less than two hours later I got another phone call. The wrong doctor had given advise to the woman. The doctor in charge told her now that it would be to dangerous to go back to high altitude, it could kill her. With this serious advise the woman decided to fly back home.

Luckily the doctors in Potosí and Sucre couldn´t hear any liquid in the lungs of the two other patients. Hopefully they recover soon on their own, because a medical advise to drink enough coca tee and fruit juices and take some ‘ Soroche Pills’ (which contain Aspirin and caffeine) is probably not going to help them much.

La Paz is calm and sunny and we could see a beautiful sunrise above the city.

In Puno it seems to be difficult to get enough bus tickets to Cusco with the best bus on that line. I also get 3 different prices in variation of 25, 30 or 42 soles? Luckily not the whole group goes on the same day and I can get just enough tickets for the 10 who are left to ride on the original schedule. I pay 30 soles for the day tickets and 25 for the night tickets, because they seem to be more popular? However later I find out that one person who left earlier to Cusco and who had booked his ticket through the agency I usually book my tours with, had paid 45 soles for a night ticket, while the price of 20 soles was still visible under the black marker spot. So much for reliable service…

Unfortunately one of the new patients is still not feeling well, in fact he´s even feeling worse than before and thinks about flying back home. We decide to get his lungs checked again, but this time with x-ray photos, so if there is now something to see, he can use them to show his insurance company. Yes, unfortunately this time the x-rays show liquid in his lungs. According to the doctor the liquid could be about a week old in one of his lungs and just about 2 days in his other. It must have started in, or just before Sucre then. Equal to the first woman, he had not enough oxygen in his blood (77 points) and needed to get treated with oxygen and medication to get rid of the liquid in his lungs. Also this man had not been drinking enough, so I asked the doctor if there was any relation in not drinking enough and getting HAPE? He belongs to a special clinic in Puno, specialized in high altitude sicknesses, he gets a lot of patients with this sickness, so he should be able to tell me more. I already knew that people who live or spend more time on high altitude have more red blood cells (responsible for transporting oxygen through our body) in their blood, but this doctor tells me now that people on high altitude have also more blood in their body, seven instead of 5 liter on sea level. He says that if we drink more water/liquid, it makes our blood thinner and it compensates for our sort on blood and oxygen within. This is a bit of a strange story and what is the relation with HAPE? He says that if the lungs don´t get enough oxygen they open more to try to reach out for more oxygen, while they´re doing that they start leaking. But the lungs give the oxygen to the blood? Anyway, this is to complicated, something else than. Is it not dangerous to just give oxygen to this man? The last time when the woman got oxygen from a bottle, there was less oxygen in her blood after the first treatment than before? “That was probably because she got dry oxygen”, said the doctor, “dry oxygen can´t push the liquid out of the lungs”. This makes sense, because the second bottle indeed contained a small water reservoir. I will ask more about this from the Dutch specialist.

Luckily the treatment worked quick and the next day the man felt so much better that he wanted to try to finish the tour again.

Then we´re all in Cusco, the last city of the tour and for many already a highlight (long) before they get there. Let´s hope this new agency which I arranged the new Inca Jungle Trail with, can really be trusted. It starts not so promising when I try to visit their small, hidden away office and no-one opens the door? I had already heard that my passenger had visit the office, but I didn´t know if everything was now arranged and paid already and I couldn´t reach him either. Luckily the office answers to it´s emergency phone number (after I first needed to buy more credit) and told me that everything was arranged. They only mentioned the wrong hotel for the pickup, but that was easily changed.

Next day, Monday indeed everything started well, maybe at the end of this trip our bad luck is finished? The transfers for the Inca Trails and the Sacred Valle (good and friendly guides you can find on www.aputours.com ) went smooth and the sick felt a bit better again. Maybe it is also true that the air in Cusco doesn´t only contain more oxygen than in Puno, because of the altitude (350m lower), but also because there is more vegetation around Cusco. The air even seems to be less dry in Cusco, which prevents a dry throat and coughing.

In the afternoon I already got my first crack in having a smooth ending of this tour. When I received the train tickets for the 4 who had booked a tour to Machu Picchu with me, I noticed that the train would leave at 8am from Ollantaytambo instead of 7:20am. Again a bit less time on the site for these 4, let´s call my office. They first tell me that I´m wrong, but later they find out that the train of 7:20 is cancelled. So I´m right and the 4 will leave later.

We had already been looking for public busses to go to Paucartambo and Tress Cruces to watch a famous sunrise. Unfortunately (or maybe no) it turned out that there were no public busses going there (during this time of the year, or maybe only during the festivals in July?). Later on I even found out that the last part to the viewpoint is a one-way dirt road of 14km where no busses will go, because you have to pay a 10 sol entrance fee…

This Tress Cruces viewpoint is situated at a corner of the national park of Manu and close to the village of Paucartambo. June and July are the best months to experience a unique sunrise which can only be seen on two places in the world, Japan and Peru, where the highlands (3800m) goes abrupt over in the jungle of the national park. On an ideal day the tops of the trees are covered with a thick blanket of clouds and you can see the sun rising above this blanket like you´re in an airplane.

For the Monday night I had arranged a special taxi service for some group members who also wanted to see this special sunrise. I went myself on Wednesday night, together with the owners of the agency I arranged the Jungle Inca Trail with.

I thought that the sunrise was nice, but not as special as I hoped for, apparently the weather wasn´t perfect. But together with the experience of a 5 hour adventures night drive and a beautiful ride back, it was worth the time and 400 soles for the taxi (a special deal for a friend J. The other group members thought the same about it. One thing I have to admit; after seeing the road to get there, 90% dirt road and some places with steep cliffs, I´m not sure if next time I will sent group members out there on their own again? O why not, I guess they can make their own choice, no?

If you think this is a nice ending of my story, sorry, it is not over yet.

It started with a missed phone call from one of the 4 group members who went on their own to Machu Picchu. I tried to call her back, but couldn´t reach her, so I called my office. They told me that something had gone wrong with the reservation of their hotel in Aguas Calientes, but it was solved now and they could sleep in another, better hotel. All right?

Next day however I heard a little different story. Arriving at the hotel in A.C. the 4 heard that their reservation had never been confirmed and the hotel was full. After some phone calls the hotel and/or agency would come up with a solution, but the 4 didn´t want to lose any more precious time on the site of Machu Picchu and decided to go there already. Hopefully when coming back the problem would be solved? Unfortunately this insecurity about having a room or not, spoilt part of the fun from their visit of Machu Picchu. To bad I wasn´t there and they couldn´t reach me to give them confidence L

When they came back they found out that their hotel indeed was better, but it was only a lot further away and a steep hill up from the centre. Not a good location for two men who aren´t very good walkers.

You can imagine that they weren´t very happy, so they decided now to find out what the real prices of this tour should have been. They now discoverered quite some difference in the prices they had paid and the real prices. Yep, the agency does want to earn some money as well, which isn´t bad if everything goes well…

When they came back in Cusco they were upset and a bit angry. I had to over bluff their reaction to get their attention and to be able to try to solve this problem my way. I told them that off course I couldn´t promise anything, but if I were them I would ask all the money back that they had paid for this tour and see where this would end. I told them that I would try to help them with this and they calmed down and accepted the offer.

Next day, after a tour like this, what else could happen on our last real day of vacation, when this day is Friday the 13^th???

It started already with the news that our flight back to Lima, which was first changed from 7:30 to 9:40, again would leave at 7:30am. It´s not that bad, but again a reservation which turned out to be different and the day is still young…

All right, the sun shines and the Cusqueñeans are busy cleaning their city for Inti Raymi and also because the APEC will visit their city in October. Unfortunately for the Cusqueñeans I heard that they would not be allowed anymore to sit for free on the hills around Sacsayhuaman to watch the Inti Raymi show. They now have to pay a small entrance fee. First I thought this wasn´t fair, but when I heard later that they often leave a lot off garbage on these hills I changed my mind.

At 13:45h local time the Dutch soccer team had to play against France. If we would win we would go to the second round of the Europe Cup. We decided that we would watch the game with a big part of the group in a Dutch restaurant/café in Cusco. It was a great game to watch with other Dutch people around and when we made even 4-1 in the extra time the Dutch party was complete. It added to the fun that the guy from the Inca Jungle Trail looked back on a nice tour and a great experience (more info at www.pie-peru.com )! Maybe I can convince Koning Aap to sell this tour as well?

For a moment all the bad luck from the tour was forgotten it was time to start thinking about all the beautiful things we have seen and done in the last two months. It was a tour during which happened more than usual and off course there were a lot of things that went wrong, but in the end it is important not to forget about all the beautiful experiences we had, together or alone. All those moments we will never forget again, all those moments make us rich in a way no-one can ever take away.

I´ve said it before, one of the reasons I like my job is because I think that it is very interesting to work with people and to observe group dynamics. They have asked me already a couple of times about my opinion over this group and its people and I have to admit that it wasn´t an easy group and for sure not an easy tour to guide. But I also have to say that in general I liked the group. It was a good mix of older and younger people and I could get along with most of them, actually there was only one I couldn´t get along with, but she believed that everything that happens is mend to be, so I guess we were just not mend to like each other. That might not be professional, but again if I have to choose I prefer to do my job from with my heart instead of from the book.

If I may say it on a non personal way I would say that we had a few strong personalities in this group, a few independent, a lot of ‘followers’ and some who switched positions. A mix like this is interesting to follow for two months, because the followers can choose different ‘ leaders’ along the way and will often act different depending on who they hang around with. In general I think that the presence of two dominant women had the biggest influence on the group. One of them likes to be around people, has often a good influence on them, but could sometimes be too energetic for some group members. The other one is not a group person and I sometimes wondered why she had booked this tour? If this last women, would not have been in this group I believe that another women would have been more in the spotlight, one who also has group skills and who would be capable of slowing down the Cusco girl when she asked for to much attention. I think that this would have given a much better balance in the group…

Anyway, things were the way they were and according to the tip I got after, I guess in general my group was happy about my contribution to this tour.

After the tour I got a message back from the Dutch altitude doctor www.hoogteziekte.inf who explained me that people on higher altitude do not have a bigger amount of blood in their body and that there is no direct relation known about drinking to less and getting HAPE, or that treating HAPE with dry oxygen is wrong. For the future I don´t want to take the risk anymore of yes or no having a bottle with oxygen in one of the jeeps for the Salar tour, so I arranged with my contact agency in Sucre to have two small bottles of oxygen ready for me in San Pedro de Atacama, before we get into the Salar with my next group. I will also see what I can do about this for colleagues on other tours.

I also managed that the 4 from M.P. would get 100 Euro each, back for their tour and an excuse from Koning Aap.

Yes, I think I can say that I managed to finish my job well and hopefully made an interesting story about it. Now I only need some kind of working license for Bolivia…

Saludos from a sunny Baños, Ecuador!

Martijn