3000, A tour during high season.

Before I tell you more about my tour during the crazy tourist-months, first some more info about the situation in Merazonia:

This time I could only work in Mera for a few days, but just enough to get some projects started and to hear that finally, after years of fighting, the paperwork, needed to privatize the land, is ready! Now it should only be a formality to get it signed on their names.

Unfortunately this happy moment that we have been waiting for so long, got overshadowed by some very sad private happenings. I guess sometimes live just isn´t fair…

We are now planning what to do in the next 12 months. I keep you updated.

More about my tour now, about what can happen during a tour in High Season in countries were common sense is not always common.

However I received my last paperwork and money only a few hours before the tour started, I had no vouchers for the tours and a price-list from last year, this new tour of a month still had a great start. We had a very busy first day going from Lima to Ica; visiting Islas Ballestas, seeing dolphins, sea lions and lots of birds; tasting different pisco´s (before lunch ;-) at a Pisco brewery and doing a Buggy tour in the desert of Hacachina, but I think this is a good way to start a tour. At the end of this day every-one was tired, but they could look back on some great moments they had experienced together as a group. They now had something nice in common to talk about, a better start then last time and a good promise for the rest of our tour.

Unfortunately it was again Nasca which didn´t want to cooperate. Again I had arranged for the group to fly in the afternoon on the day we arrived, to have a better light fall. Again I asked twice for confirmation and this time I had planned the tour a little earlier, but it still wasn´t enough. Again they lied and didn´t respect our reservations. Half the group had to fly next day and the tour I arranged for a group member (they had forgotten to make a reservation for him) also had a delay of more than 3 hour with another airliner. By the way, this airliner used to be Aerocondor, but because of a sad accident recently (it wasn´t even their fault) in which 6 people died, they have changed their name. Anyway it is the 3^rd big airliner which promises things it doesn´t accomplish and what´s even worse, is that the two girls I met in their office while I booked this flight had booked their flights ‘on the street’ for 80 US$ each, but they went flying on time… How am I suppose to explain this to my groups? How am I suppose to explain that even the big airliners prefer to cancel their reservations (for which they only got 40 US$), so they can sell these tickets again, but now for 80 US$...

While I complained about this to a friend, a friend of her listed with and showed a lot of interest. It turned out that he worked for I-Peru, the governmental tourist service of Peru. He had heard more stories like mine, especially during high season and cloudy weather, which unfortunately often go together… He said he wanted to do something about this, but hasn´t much to pressure with. He asked me if I wanted to do my story in front of a camera. All right, I guess it doesn´t hurt to try. I did my story in front of a reporter and while I spit mine complains (without using names) I suddenly thought of a possible solution as well. Why do they keep on selling flight tickets between 7 am and 5 pm, while usually during these months it is cloudy between 7 and 10 am and if it´s cloudy all flights delay for 3 hours? What if they reserve the hours between 10 am and 4 pm for (long time) reservations, use 7 am too 10 am for local selling’s and 4 pm too 5 pm for delays and last minute selling´s? They can make the hours between 10 and 16:00h a bit more expensive to reserve, but with more guaranty to really fly on the hour you booked. Off course it will never be 100% secure, but I think the ones who want to fly are willing to pay a little more for more guaranties on the time they want to fly.

Already the same evening I was on the local news television, I wonder who has seen this and if anyone listens.

When confidence is broken, it is always more difficult to get it back, however these flying problems were not my fault, after two confirmations I did promise my group that we would all fly around a certain hour on the same day. I couldn´t accomplice this promise, which could make it more difficult for me to convince the group about things I like to recommend. Why would someone do a less know Inca Jungle Trail, why should we all stay one more day in Sucre and fly from Sucre to La Paz. “What if I pay more for nothing, what if the tour leader is wrong?”  

The day we had to go to Colca Cañon the Peruvians had chosen to hold a national strike/protest. The protest was mainly against the constantly raising prices, while their salary, at least over the last 5 year, didn´t raise equally. More or less the same reason as last year, but the government didn´t keep their promises they did back then.

Probably they would block the main roads again, but nobody was really sure. We decided to take our precautions and leave earlier from Arequipa. They wanted to let us go at 2:00 am in the morning, but I decided against. I asked if it was possible and what we needed to pay more if we went at 22:00h. This way the group could still have dinner in Arequipa, didn´t have to wait that long and still could get some sleep in the canyon. Hopefully this wouldn´t make the quick assent (arriving in the morning in Arequipa (2350m) and) leaving directly the same night to 3650m in the canyon…

This time we were lucky that they made our reservation in a different hotel than planned, because in this hotel there was place available to arrive one night earlier and in the other not. The price difference for this additional night wasn´t a lot and the group decided even to go an hour earlier. It was a cold (no heating in the bus?!) direct ride of 4 hours and after arriving we went immediately to sleep.

Next morning with breakfast at 8:30 am no-one was really sick of the altitude (anymore, during the night some didn´t feel that well). I guess this is a good proof that keeping yourself calm while going to higher altitude is one of the best things to prevent altitude sickness. Maybe I can recommend the same program for next tours, only than in a bus with heating ;-)

In the canyon we were also rewarded with a very close view of the condors, so while other groups had to leave at 2:00 am or even spend the whole day waiting to get into Arequipa, it seems that we were able to turn bad luck into good luck.

This time we were also able to keep our luck. During a boat tour in the harbor of Arica we were witness of two special bird shows. The first were of dozens of Booby´s who dropped like shooting stars into the sea to catch fish. The second was literally a black line of millions of migrating birds which flew closely over the sea. So close that we were able to sail through and got a close view of this spectacle.  The same night we celebrated our first successful week with almost the whole group in a nice bar.

On our way to San Pedro a family within the group wanted to visit Chuquicamata. Chuquicamata? What´s that? It was a small village and the biggest open copper mine in the world close to Calama. The husband of the family was born there and since this tour passes the village very close they were hoping to be able to visit it. The only problem was that you need an official governmental permit to visit this place and on Sundays everything is closed. They wanted to try anyway, but I had to go with the group and they didn´t speak Spanish, so I wrote them a note to explain their situation to the guards and maybe it would help. I also arranged a taxi for them and then we left them in Calama.

When they arrived a few hours later in San Pedro they were very happy. They had visited the village, seen the mine from a distance and even got some old photo´s from the village and mine from the taxi driver, who´s family had also worked in the mine. If it was the taxi driver, the request note or just a combination with luck, it´s all not important, in the end it was a great experience for this family and a mission accomplished.

On our way from Chili to Bolivia unfortunately again I had to deal with lying people and people who didn´t kept their promises. First with our transfer to the border, which arrived 40 minutes late and later with the promise that my working visa would be at the border, but it wasn´t… How to solve this problem??? Luckily one of the jeep-drivers had worked at the immigration and he helped us a lot to pas the border.

This time we had enough oxygen in the jeeps, two small plastic bottles, which Dirk had arranged for me and one new metal bottle with head-set, which Tonito Hotel had arranged especially for me. But, like mostly, if you are well prepared, you don´t need it, a situation I prefer.

For Sucre I had convinced everyone to go flying and stay one day longer in Sucre. Yes, it took me a lot of effort to get everyone flying. I even had to spread my own free discount on the group price to get every-one flying, but in the end it was worth it and the group was very happy about this decision. Another mission accomplished.

In La Paz we had good weather and 10 group members went down-hill on a bike. There do were some protests about the excursion package which turned out to be more expensive and un-handy if you wanted to skip some tours or use them flexible. In La Paz I also received my visa to work in Bolivia, only my passport number is still wrong.

In Puno we suddenly had 5 sick group members? I also had a meeting with a colleague of my and my chef from Holland. It was interesting to discus with them how e could improve our tours in South America.

Except from two luckily most of the sick felt much better when we arrived in Cusco. In Cusco I went to the inauguration of a traditional restaurant of a friend of my and had some good parties during the nights with some group members and colleagues J

Unfortunately there were also some less nice experiences in Cusco, Machu Picchu Pueblo (former Aguas Calientes) and around. First of all it isn´t nice to tell your group that just this month they raised most prices too almost a double. The Boleto Turistico costs now 130 Soles for 10 days and 70 soles for one day and this is still exclusive the best museums and sites inside the city. But we still pay, so who is stupid…

We also still had a group member who was still very sick, but we didn´t know what she had. She thought it was the flue and a doctor we had in the group also thought that it was something viral, which needed some antibiotics and time. Unfortunately this didn´t work out and it even got worse, so finally we decided to get her examined by a local doctor. I also asked her to get a blood sample to test for salmonella, because this is a common disease around Cusco. It turned out that she had a special type of salmonella and also parasites. She got the right antibiotics and some pills and soon felt a lot better. Luckily these doctors were better than most of them in my last tour.  

Some other info about Cusco and surroundings: Did you know that Cusco was build as the capital of the Inca Empire, in the shape of a Puma with Sacsyhuaman as the head? That the Inca´s only ruled over Latin America for about 100 year, before the Spanish defeated them with a list and their city´s name changed from Qosco into Cusco? That the Spanish build their buildings on the foundations of the Inca buildings and that the city is now conquered by tourists from all over the world. Most tourist call it now Cuzco and some Peruvians even call their city Gringo Town… It is estimated that during high season about 2500 to 3000 tourists a day visit the site of Machu Picchu (and they all come through Cusco)! Within this amount only less than 250 of them have actually walked the 2 or 4-day Inca trail.  

Because nowadays so few tourists can walk the famous Inca Trail, the porters also have to pay an entrance fee of 45 soles. Mostly the agencies pay this. An average salary for a porter is 30 á 40 soles for each day they work. They don´t receive money if they don´t work and despite the rules they often still have to carry a lot more than 20kg in un-comfortable backpacks.

The 4-day Inca Trail walkers still have to get up very early on their 4^th day, not to see sunrise (the gate opens too late for that), but because the porters need to run down with their things to catch an early train. If they don´t catch this train, they have to wait a whole day for the next. This train leaves so early because otherwise it will be inconvenient in using the same rail track together with all the tourist trains…

Talking about inconvenient and un-logical things; again I wanted to climb up the Huayna Picchu Mountain to see if anything had changed after my last complain about the route to the top. They did came up with some new safety rules. The mountain would now open at 7:00 am and only the first 400 people would be allowed to climb the mountain in two groups of 200, the first more or less from 7:00 to 10:00 am and the second 200 from 10:00 to 13:00h. However the site of M.P. opens at 6:00 am and Huayna Picchu is very popular, so when I arrived at 6:30 am there was already a big line of waiting people. Not before 7:00 am, when some people had already sneaked their way into the line, they started to ask people if they wanted to go up at 7 or 10. The ones who wanted to go up at 7 got a hole in their ticket and the ones who choose for 10:00 am got a small ticket (this is a good system, actually I also like their new system that you have to buy your entrance ticket for Machu Picchu down in Machu Picchu Pueblo). Only now because of the time difference in opening Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu and the delay in registration of everyone who want to climb up, it took until 8:00 am before I could finally pass the check point. Off course I wasn´t the only one who had to wait that long and because it was also raining (good for me to show the danger on top), a lot of people who had to wait in the cold had to go to the bathroom which isn´t there…

So they urinated between the plants and on the ruins. The preservers of Machu Picchu don´t want to destroy the rocks of Huayna Picchu by putting handrails and I guess they don´t want to destroy the ruins of M.P. by putting a toilet on the site, but I´m not sure if the result is any better…

Waiting in line I also spoke to a young couple from Lima, they looked smart and probably had good jobs, or they wouldn´t be able to visit Machu Picchu and buy a very expensive camera. They told me that they were happy about their lives. That´s nice to hear, unfortunately they also told me that that no-one would probably listen to my recommendations about Huayna Picchu. “That´s how things go in Peru”, they told me. Not a very positive opinion about your own country.

On top of Huayna Picchu off course nothing had changed  compare to last time, except that a lot of people ignored the direction signs, probably also because the steps were wet and slippery.  Because of this it took me some time to get some good pictures and movies of the dangerous situations on this route down, but it also showed a clear problem of people who ignored the signs to walk a saver route, but who met the ones who walked the official route halfway the slippery steps. This was some good footage to show the director of I-Peru. Yep, if the director of M.P. doesn´t want to listen, I find someone else.

The director of I-Peru was very busy, but I got the opportunity to show my footage to his assistant. He wasn´t very impressed by how steep and small the steps are, but he didn´t like it when he saw people going up and down the same small steps at the same time. “That´s why we go in two groups now”, he first said (yes, if everyone would go up and down at the exact same moment???). Well at least part of the idea is good. When he saw the difference between how difficult it is to go down this route and how easy to climb up, he luckily also said immediately that something needs to change, that they should put a guard on that spot who tells people which way they have to go up and which way they have to go down (and maybe he can also tell people not to walk on the Inca-walls, because now there was nobody who said anything about that…). So if you ever get the opportunity to climb up Huayna Picchu (nowadays I would recommend Machu Picchu Mountain instead, but anyway) and you see a guard who tells you that the safest way to climb to the top is by using those small steps and going down another way, then you know my mission is finally completed.

To be honest, it is not just that I care about the safety of everyone who climbs this mountain, or the possibility they close the mountain for everyone if someone fall and dies (like in Chichinitcha, Mexico), we all have our own responsibilities in this as well. No, for me it is more about the stupidity that an easy change can make such a difference, but no-one seems to care. Unfortunately common sense is still not always common in Latin America. Like why making a nice route system on the site of Machu Picchu, but often not giving the maps you need to follow these routes? Why do people who want the 4-day trail have to leave Cusco at 6:00 am, while the ride to km 82 is max. 2 and a half hour and on the first they usually don´t walk more than 5 hours over a distance of 12 km. Why is it that in Machu Picchu Pueblo they keep on carrying  their little cars with heavy thing (at least for 3 years now) over steps? Is no-one smart enouh to build a small ramp and smooth sidewalk next to the railway? Why having an expensive Boleto Turistico for the most important sites around Cusco, but exclusive the best sites and museums in Cusco?Or why can´t you buy a telephone card in a telephone shop?

(Why) Are women in Latin America more reliable than men? All right, that´s something different, but it seems true.

If I look at most of the agencies, restaurants and hotels I work with during my tours it are often women or foreigners who run and/or manage the place. Often the main chef is still a man, but it seems that he prefers to have women working for him. I heard and can confirm more or less from my own experiences that´s not really because Latin women are more intelligent than Latin men, but more because they often show more dedication to the job and more responsibility.

So what happened to the good, reliable Latin men? Is it maybe true that most of them leave to the U.S.A. or Spain, because they get paid much better and there is less corruption? Maybe it is time that those reliable people use their knowledge and dedication to improve their own economy and politics, so they don´t have to move to other countries anymore…

All right, enough about politics. I want to end this story by saying that I look back on a very nice tour and looking at the tip I got, I believe I can say that my group agrees J I also have to admit that having an easier tour to guide, gave me more private time, time to meet with friends, time to enjoy the nightlife, time to help other tour leaders and time to socialize more with my group. This way it is easier for me to know what they like and to notice any important changes within the group.

More free time also gave me finally enough time to make my website good enough to open it for the public. It´s not really finished yet, but with special thanks to Geoffrey, it looks very nice and promising:

www.worldtraveller2u.nl

Let me know what you think about it. Any recommendations are always welcome.

Martijn