Rick Rambles – A blog

To change a PIN.
So here we were.  We had just landed in Lima, Peru.  My first time in a third-world country.  And what do you think one of the first things I did?  I lost my debit card.  It was clearly not my fault…  Marlo had used her card to get cash and I might have given a piece of bad advice so that instead of getting Sols that would be useful in the country that we were currently occupying she ended up with more US $’s.  ooops.  So she decided that I should use my card to get the sols.  No problem.  During this discussion we had a chat with and English chap about the exchange rate.  We knew what the Chilean peso was at but neither of us had a clue about the sol (2.9/$).  So I put my card in, got 150 sols and left my debit card right there and walked away…  no clue how I spaced so badly.  Worse then that it took me two days to figure out that I had lost it.  Fortunately one smart thing that I did do was copy all of the card numbers and contact numbers if I did have an issue.  I cancelled it and had a new card issues (in the us) easily.  No help to me here in peru, but no one had used the card and it was fine.  I was just not happy about being stupid.
This bring us to part two of the sage.  I still had my wonderful visa signature card.  That was the good news.  The bad news is that I did not know the PIN.  Setting the PIN was on my list of things to do before I left…  I did not make it to that item…  I did not know the pin.  No worries I thought, I have this wonderful signature service.  I called them up and told them of my dilemma.   This call mind you was from my cell phone.  I believe that the rate for that call was around $2/min… America…  so being on hold is even less fun then when it not $2/min…  the first call was ok.  She asked me my card number, yes, the one I type in the first time they asked, gave her all the information in the world, and she said she would send me to the automated system to set the pin.  I thought I was set… not.  The automated system spit me back out to another customer service rep.  I proceeded through THE SAME dance and she connected me to the automated system…  the THIRD rep was even more help.  At this point I was somewhat agitated.  We were sitting in the airport waiting to board a plane and I figured that I could get this done.  She told me that there was no way to do this because I was not calling from my home phone.  WELL I had changed my number to my cell and it turns out that it takes 30 days for that to be valid for a PIN change.   I could not get my pin set.  Game over…
Now the really good part…  she asks me if there was anything ELSE she could do for me, what?!?!?!?  I very nicely told her that she didn’t do anything for me in the FIRST PLACE so she SHOULD ask me if there is anything that she can ACTUALLY help me with.  The answer was no…
The moral of the story is this… make sure all that pin business is set before you leave home.  ALSO, one additional little tidbit…  if your PIN on your debit card is over four digits, it may not work in foreign countries.  Try it BEFORE you really need it!  Yes, Lauren this means you :>

The 50/50 rule:

I have come to the conclusion that whatever question that we ask people here; they seem to understand about half of what we ask and in turn we understand about half of what they answer. It take a good four times around a question to get even close to any useful information… if you have two people it sometimes makes it faster… sometimes not.

We are here.  the hotel  is very nice.  It is actually on Puno Bay of the Lake, but still very nice.  Pictures are being uploaded.  We have good interne!

Next up the 50-50  rule…

We are leaving the hotel for the airport.  One more plane.  an hour flight.  I sugessted that we check the bags because Marlo’s is getting even larger.  She thinks its a good idea.   The she askes, “what’s the worst that can happen?!?!??!”  doh!!!  I guess we will see…  off we go

Mochu Picchu
We got up at o’dark early.  We checked out without incident and it turns out that they gave us a decent deal on the extra bed for Lauren.  Condor left a snippy message that they would pick us up at 5:00 and only wait 5 minutes!  Well we figured that we would be holding people up.  NO we were the only THREE (in case it would help Condor travel figure out that we are now three).  Yup we had one of those 29 person vans all to ourselves.  We were able to enjoy the gut wrenching teeth jarring 1.5 hour ride from Cuzco to Ollanta train station.  It was fairly uneventful.  Lots of blurry pictures to mark our passage.  Melba met us at the train station and managed to get Lauren in the same car with us, plus one for condor.  It was a late booking.  The train ride was nice, beautiful, and picturesque.  Keep in mind that we just spent a week in Aspen where they too have lots of the same type of mountains…  ok, maybe we are getting a little spoiled.  I am personally ok with that.
We started seeing some Inca ruins and trails and clouds… The sun was peeking out a bit but not that much.   After the van and after the train we rode a bus up the very narrow, very steep, very muddy road filled with switchbacks and of course lots of other busses traveling in the opposite direction!  It was not tooooo bad.
We finally got to MP.  It was almost 10:00.  We have been traveling 5 hours already.  But we were at MP.  Our guide was to be Pedro…  ok, his real name was Percy.  I kid you not Percy…  I liked Pedro better.  He started out walking fast head down and mumbling.  I had some low expectations.  He kept walking too fast and leaving behind half our group.  It got better.  Our groups consisted of Me (you might have guessed), Marlo (another easy one), Lauren (of course), and 8 or so others.  Two women together, not really I don’t think, and older man (70’s) his son.  A 50 something bad blond and her husband a bad bald.  They must have been on the road a while because his head was poorly shaved.   (of course we are in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world), an Irish couple, the women dared me to walk to my death.  I in turn offered to push her off the edge.  She declined.  I think that was it.  I will ask Lauren and Marlo… maybe. (I did, that was it.)  Most important, except for the dangerous stuff, is to note that I assisted the son of the elderly gentleman not once, not twice, but three times in the more strenuous stretches of the tour.
We walked we listen, we took in the awesomeness, and the guide told me I had great form while I was standing in a doorway..  Marlo AND Lauren claim that he was referring to something obscure like the Incan building techniques, but I don’t think so.  I also got four questions right that the guide asked.  Ok, I am a bit of a ham.  There was even indoor plumbing in this city and we checked out the bathroom.  I kid you not three women had to go in together.   Of course I had to point that out.  The pictures really tell the best story.  There are LOTS of them.  Not as many as I had hoped though.  Well, maybe I had just planned to take them myself.  An explanation is in order.  The short story is that my camera battery died and I FAILED to think to bring the spare!  It’s huge ya know, maybe 4 ounces arg!  My camera reported two of three bars of the battery left.  I NATURALLY figured that since I had taken 1000 pictures and a couple of videos with that I should be good for days.  Well you might have seen this coming, but NO!  Half way up the bus (after the van and the train) the battery indicator should a horrific red.  If it had done that 10 minutes earlier I would have still had the spare battery in my clutches.  Like I said ARGG! FAILURE, lack of planning and just plain silly…  live and learn.  It turns out that our photo Sherpa, Lauren, did a fabulous job taking pictures.  Almost every time I asked if she had take this shot or that she proudly reply that she had, indeed.  The only other camera issue is that Lauren’s camera makes it look like I have a bit of a gut…  we are sending it in for repairs when we return to the states.
The end of the tour we are to have a wonderful buffet lunch at the Sanctuary.  It is a fancyish feed.  get  them in and get them fed buffet.  Nice enough.  Well turns out that Condor did not include that in the “every thing that we are doing” portion of Lauren’s inclusion.  I do not argue, I keep the receipt and vow revenge!  Ok, no revenge, but I do want my $30 back.  Yup, $30 for a buffet lunch… it is a tough haul up there I guess…  THEN they want to charge extra for Diet Coke!!!  It turns out that Inca Cola is free so I go with that after I order a Diet Coke.  We eat trout, beef, chicken, lots of deserts, etc.  It was a nice lunch.  While we are lunching it begins to pour.  It rained really hard certainly to the disappointment of the Incas, they did worship the sun after all.  The road got muddy, everything got wet and slippery and worse than that the lines to the busses got long.  We checked out the back door of the restaurant and it seemed that a bus would sometimes load there.  We figured we could hop right on.  Turns out they came from the main line.  So we went over to the main line.  There was an awning that covered maybe 50 people.  There were 28 people per bus.  There were two buses full of people not getting wet waiting for the bus.  The bad news is that there were probably 129 people in line.  We asked where the line started several time and never got an answer.  I have found that in Peru the people understand about half the question that we ask and we understand about half of what they tell us.  I think that one guy got tired of looking at us and squeezed us into the front of the line.  We staid dry and were on a bus in 5 minutes.  Well I knew that we cut.  I felt a little guilty.  Cutting in line is not something that I do.  I was  not too happy when I suddenly realized that I had helped that old guy three times!  That forgave me Marlo and Lauren for our heinous line cutting!!!  And all was right again (see rationalized) in my ordered world.  I actually started laughing out loud at my rationalization…
We got to the hotel and checked in.  As I had mentioned Lauren was our third.  We decided that we would simply ask for a room with two full size beds and Lauren would stay with us.  We if you refer back a couple of lines about them understanding half and us understanding half it makes perfect sense that the small room had two single beds.  We briefly discussed floor sleeping and we decided as encouraged by Marlo to get a better room.  So they offered her a big bed and a rollout for $60 or an upgraded supreme room for $20.  She chose wisely and we ended up with a really big room with two full-size beds.  That worked out well.  We also fessed up to having three people.  Now this upgrade to three people and the supreme room somehow did not qualify for three dinners.  Not sure why, but we paid for another $30 buffet I think…
So we settle into the room.  Marlo picks one bed and Lauren the other.  They go to sleep.  I go check things out.  I climb up the 5 flight rusted old spiral stair case, hang out in the lobby, write this blog, read my book, etc.  I also decide to take a walk.  My walk turns out to be a bit of a wondering quest for wireless.
We made the big plan for tomorrow.  There is a really cool climb / hike up the mountain that is in the most famous pictures of MP.  It is wannu Picchu (sounds like I want to pinch you, well to me it does) anyway…  we want to go up there.  The problem is that 1) MP has recently be named a wonder of the world and b)they only let the first 200 up at 7:00 and a second two hundred up between 10:00 and 11:00.  We are going to wing it and hope for the best.  Plan b is to hike some sun trail and maybe hike back down.  It is only an hour down back into town.  We have a 4:20 train back to Cuzco way and then the grueling 1 ½ hour van ride, ugg.
Well the second day of MP was even better then the first.  The Inca gods smiled on us and there was sun.  Marlo told me that I should bring the cool altimeter that my dad got for me, but low, I did not.  I should have.  It turns out I ended up hiking a thousand or so feet above MP.  Our plan was to do wannu piccho.  It was not meant to be.  When we were buying Lauren’s passage into the great city (must have college id and know how old you are) the lady radioed over to wannu and determined that the 400 slots were taken.  Bummer, oh well.  We talk about hiking to the sun temple.  It’s only an hour round trip hike…  so they say.  We decide we want to go for a little more gusto and climb MP Mountain.  They claim that it is a 3 hour round trip.  Well if you are willing to die for it, you can probably make it in 3 hours.  In fact I told one couple exactly that.  If you take your time you can make it no problem.  It you try to kill yourself, you will succeed.  So we all begin this hike.  MP is something like 7 thousand feet.  I am thinking that mount MP is maybe 8.  People have problems with mile high stadium in Colorado.  We climb, and climb, and climb.  Actually it is really a hike I think at this point.  We keep looking at the peak and it does not seem to be getting any closer.  I believe that it is mocking me, daring me…  thin air remember.  Anyway we get about half way up (I really have no idea how far we were) and I am chomping at the bit.  Marlo and Lauren give me a crop to the but and send me on my way… metaphorically, duh!  And I am off.  Well the “I am off” thing lasted about 15 minutes.  Then I got to the steep stuff (at altitude remember) where I was panting away.  I took a video at one point where I was completely out of breath  seriously considering base jumping as a viable option for the trip down.  The lack of parachute convinced me that idea was not my best.  Onward and upward I trudged.  The pictures are pretty good. Even if I do say so myself.  Ever steep set of stairs led to a switchback that of course led to the next steep set of stairs.  Ok, I am stubborn.  It is sometimes a positive thing.  I was not going to be denied my mountain.  It was still there.  I pressed on.  I had come along and passed a couple of people on my quest.  They were taking their time.  Leaving marlo and Lauren behind we wanted to be heading back at 12:00.  In retrospect I am not really sure why we were in such a hurry, but that was my goal (picture at the top was at 12:04 in case you were wondering).  The one person that stayed with me for the last of the trek was an older woman.  When we got to the top I asked her how old she was.  She was 60!  I thought briefly that I was in pretty good shape… hmmm maybe I am and I just have to maintain this for the rest of my life.  Or some 60 year old women nearly kicked my but hiking up a mountain…  my world, we are both in good shape.  I was keeping track of how often I stopped to take pictures.  See I was  not resting, I was documenting the climb.  It  turns out that I had to make some entries about every couple of minutes during the steeper stretches.  That was most of it.  The hike continued, on, and on, and on with the ever elusive summit mocking me.  I cursed my bag a couple of times.  It had eeepc (my little formally light laptop), and lots of other heavy stuff in it, like tissue.  Marlo offered to carry my bag for my quest for the top, but… did I mention stubborn yet…  anyway, eeepc was with meeep (ok, more thin air).  We trudged on.  Oh, yea, the 60 yo woman had a much bigger pack. Ego takes another hit…  finally the summit seems to be within my reach and a cruise around the last few switchbacks.  I reach the top to the spectacular vista.  MP is a tiny city way below and that wannu picchu’s height pales in comparison to my perch.  I took several pictures of the view and of course one with my life sustaining pop tarts!  Now did I think to take a quick little 360 video of the peak?  Well actually I did.  About 10 minutes into my decent.  I was not turning around.  I did take a picture of the old women.  Her and two other younger women (they looked much better than the old lady) were from Pennsylvania, either that or Transylvania, she had an accent.  The hike down was a breeze!  I am a rock hopper and I hopped on down.  It was steep, but fun.  I shortly met back up with Lauren and marlo.  They were not that far behind me.  I met back up with them and we mossied (sp) on down.  We got to the junction of the mountain trail and the sun temple trail… it was still pretty early.  After some teeth pulling I determined that Lauren wanted to hike to the sun temple, I certainly did.  Marlo did not. And here we have an error in logistics.  THEY say that it takes an hour to hike there and back, so we decide to meet marlo at the bus station at MP.  Well turns out that there is nothing to do there, I stubbornly hold on to my gear again, and it take us more like two hours  to get to the temple.  What we SHOULD have done is meet her at the bus station in Aguas Caleintes.  That was she could have wondered the shops and eaten some nice food.  I was relieved of her passport and tickets…  ooops…  Lauren and I hike up to the sun temple.  Actually I trudged.  My body was still thinking about the mountainous hike and this not so steep hike was not refreshing, but it was here and we would never be back again.  Some people told us we were half way there.  Not! We kept going… we finally got to the “temple.”  Lauren and I figured that it was actually a place where the teenage Incas went to chew on their cocoa leaves and what-not…  it was not the same architecture exactly…  we made it and the hike down was ok.  I was BEAT.  I was out of drink before the top of the mountain and I was hot, sweaty and thirsty….
We rode the train back to Ollantia station.  It was the better vista dome train.  We were cruising along just fine when were heard this hideous noise.  It sounded like metal scraping against the rail.  It turns out that it was part of a show.  Something about a guy in a mask and a limp llama.  It was not very entertaining.  Especially because it was SO loud.  Lauren was  in a different car and I guess that it was not as loud…  After that we were treated to a fashion show.  That was a little more amusing, but not that much.  We got to the train station and Melba was there to greet us.  She showed us to our van for the 2 hour return torture trip.  It was not so bad we had the 30 person bus to ourselves again and we stretched out and relaxed.  It made me wonder how busy Condor travel is if we get our own ride..
We get back to Cuzco and settle back into the same room that we had 2 days ago.  It was a good thing.  Lauren and I decide to go get a bite to eat.  We cruise over to the main plaza look to see what jumps out at us.  Well the only things that jumps out at us are people trying to sell us things.  These things actually included to separate offers of elicit substances.  One powder and one that is smoked.  We decline.  There is of course the constant barrage of urchins trying to sell every useless thing…  I told Marlo that I was going to see if I could determine the most efficient method of getting rid of these pests.  The first one I politely say non gracias, twice.  I said it again and then told him to go away.  He gives me a very succinct FU you go away!!!  This little imp was maybe 8!  I decide another tack, a little less forceful.  A firm, Non … Gracias.  Well that is better the 3 little girl children simply mock me with a si’ gracias…  I just ignore the rest.
I thought about going to Bembos (burger joint) or McDonalds.  Lauren forbids it.  It turns out to be a good thing.  We settle on a nice pizza restaurant.  I want a meat pizza and Lauren does not.  We settle on a Hawaiian.  It was very good.
We all sleep.

We went it rocked..  pictures and blog… later  back in Cuzco

I should have put it on my back…

Oh well.  Last night the hotel was very nice.  We staid there for 5 hours…  We are now in Lima airport again.  Off to Cuzco.  We are trying to change the train to Mochu Picchu so we don’t have to get up at 5:00am.  Not going so well.

BUT MORE importantly Marlo passed her recertification exam YEA!!!  We knew she would but still.  Great news and a load off…

We are attempting to hook up with Lauren, but she has no phone.  Her Chile phone won’t work in Peru and her Verizon phone is in Chile… hmmmm

There should be some pictures out there, but there was a 500 error publishing…  we are r u n n i n g…  i will look at it later…