I spent the night in Yanque as there is extremely limited transportation to my town of Madrigal. The hostal owners bragged of hot showers and I was anxiously looking forward to getting up in the morning so I could take a hot shower in a private bathroom for as long as I wanted (a luxury I have only experienced about 4 times in the 3 months I have lived in Peru). But, alas, the water was tepid... huge bummer. But what can you expect with 10 s/. ($3.5) a night lodging.
Tim was not so lucky to get a shower at all in his room, so I walked with him to the hot springs so he could bathe.
***photo of lunch by the river*****I sat by the river, ate cheese and bread, and picked 'yerba louisa'- lemon grass to bring back to my room to make tea later that evening. This absolutely delightful lunch was greeted in the early afternoon with a 3 hour Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) tourism meeting. I was going mainly to meet some of the NGO workers in the valley and listen in to their plans to develop tourism here, and I have to say it was torture. Utter, and absolute torture. Instead of running the meeting efficiently as the Peruvian Ministery of Tourism should have it became a complain fest. Who isn't doing what and all of these "upper class" Peruvians complaining about the "lower class'" inefficiencies in conducting tourist attractions and alimentation in the canyon. There was no, "Here is our collected list of problems, lets brainstorm the solutions" it was just, "There are no well drawn maps." "There isn't adequate transportation to tourist sites" "Guides don't speak English, or French, or German", etc. None of the NGOs proposed to draw up maps, supply buses, or language training. There was steam flowing from my ears and I had to get up and leave. It was almost as if these "upper class" Peruvians enjoyed hearing themselves talk and it made them feel better about themselves bashing the poor locals. This is becoming a theme that I do believe I will either confront wisely or out of fury someday. I need to continue to bite my tongue. Needless to say, I left after hour 3 ½.
As I was looking to leave Chivay via overcrowded "comvi"-bus a councilman stopped me to chat and said there was an ambulance leaving in a few minutes to go to Madrigal and I should just ride with them. After sitting on the curb waiting for an hour for the ambulance to leave the mayor of my town drove by in his beautiful truck and called us aboard. I scored in this deal. All I had to do was help load some heavy bags of vegetable oil and rice into the bed of the truck and in exchange I didn't have to pay for the transportation home and the whole ride was a quechua language class! I have to say yet again, the Peruvians are just tickled pink when they hear me clucking away in quechua. I am determined to learn this dieing language that only a handful of white folk have mastered.
The sad news was that tonight I was invited to a parent teacher meeting for the middle school , and no one was at the location at said time. It was probably rescheduled without them informing me. Nothing beyond the ordinary, but none-the-less frustrating. Good leadership and organization are more than lacking.
I decided to head home to reboot when there was a not so faint knock at the door. My heart jumped because the sun was down and I always fear the men in town, but a young little voice responded. The word has gotten around that the gringa is helping give kids perfect English homework scores and this little lady came by ready to learn. We finished her homework so quickly she was still hungry, so she decided to quiz me on my knowledge of the english language. Funny how this showed me the lack of trust the students have in their teachers. When this bright and confident little girl realized I did truly know every color in her book, we switched gears back and we began a Simon-Says-type game with the colors around the room. She learned so quickly it was stunning. And when I was confident with her knowledge she was still hungry for more. I can't wait to start my work with these little inspirational bodies.
My head hit the pillow before the warmth of her hand left my doorknob and I was out at 9pm.
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