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Written by Martijn
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Thursday, 12 January 2012 04:26 |
Hola, hola to everyone,
First I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas (Gezellige Kerstdagen, Feliz Navidad) and a Happy New Year! (Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar!, Feliz Año Nuevo!). I also hope that part (not all, that will be boring ;-) of your dreams become true in 2012 and of course that you can all go travelling again to any location in the world!
At the moment I am very, very busy. I continue working on the website of Fairtravel4u; continue to look for and putting new interesting tours together; visiting volunteer projects; writing tour itinerary’s for friends; working on a new website to promote Amazon tours and Fairtravel4u www.amazon-rainforest-tours.org and also guiding a nice group of 13 Dutch people in 3 weeks through Peru and Bolivia. During the day I enjoy my adventures live (there was an earthquake of 4.6 almost next to our hotel a few nights ago…) as a tour leader and in the evenings I continue working on Fairtravel4u a good combination
It is almost the end of 2011 and looking back it was a very interesting year for me. At the beginning of this year there were many things planned for me and (close) people around me and for Fairtravel4u and Merazonia. I was really wondering how the end of this year would look like. Now I have to say that it seems time caught up on us. I’m disappointed about several things that happened concerning Merazonia, Fairtravel4u, myself and some people around me, but I also have to say that I feel good. I learned a few new things last year (including how to make cocktails ;-) and got my self confidence back.
I’ve decided to forget about trying to be ‘nicer than I am’ just so I avoid arguments. If it is on a professional level towards my customers I need to be as polite as possible and a white lie is no problem, but friends and other people I know, they will just have to deal with who I am.
I agree that it is logic that you often reach more if you ‘say it with flowers’. But I also found out that it doesn’t matter much how I treat others, if they don’t want to listen, they will not listen, so I might as well be honest with them and myself.
My list with contact got much bigger last year, but my list with friends got smaller. I would be lying if I said that I don’t care, but I guess that’s live, we can’t have it all.
I tried to avoid arguments during my last months at Merazonia and that made no-one happy. I’ve been very nice towards the person who helps me with me with the website of Fairtravel4u, but I still don’t have a site that works, so I can still not sell tours. I’m not saying that this is his fault, there are many other things involved, but I still have to deal with the result.
I send 3 polite e-mails to my Dutch bank about having some problems with getting cash out of the ATM’s in Peru, but only after sending a very impolite e-mail I got a serious answer…
I’ve been quite nice towards the Dutch travel agency I work for. This probably is the reason that I got 3 tours, but they recently treated me like a fool by taking the word of an inexperienced tour leader over my recommendation?! This resulted in some badly informed group members and me having to solve the problem locally…
I think there is no surprise that I send them a not so very polite e-mail ;-) Maybe this will cause me my job and if, it will be sad, because I still like it, but if they can’t show me a bit more respect after 6 years, then they better find someone else.
I have to admit that there were a few moments during the past year that I was afraid not to be able anymore to do the things I like and be on a place where I feel at home. But luckily each time I was wrong I had a great time working at Izhcayluma, time flew when I was for two weeks on the coast and the same can be said for my time in Cusco. I rediscovered that I can feel at home on several places when I have some nice people around (and/or), am very busy with important things I like and am able to get enough exercise (go frequently running).
I want to give a special thanks to the people from Hostel Izhcayluma and restaurant Otra Cosa for making me feel at home in their homes
2010 Was a difficult year. In 2011 I needed new challenges to put my energy in, but to confront these challengers I needed to learn new things. To make Fairtravel4u work I will still need to learn a few things, probably even things I don’t know that I need to know about yet. But for 2012 my mayor challenge will be to try to start selling tours and for this my website needs to be finished… Until that time I luckily got a job offer from another tour leader who started his travel agency 2 years ago in Trujillo. After this tour I will help him for at least a few months and will also be able to have a look at a total new side of having a travel agency.
Yep, I’m looking forwards, but will also keep my promises with my past.
I wish you all the very best!
Saludos,
Martijn
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A tourleader, traveler and voluteer 
