Kusiawsay - the Good Life (Peaceful yet adventurous)
My first night in the new place and I am sad. The floors are cement, it feels like a jail; there is too much light outside at night, a bright light by the wall to this property and blinding guard lights from some building on the hill out the back window, a quarter kilometer off. There's no water. I miss the Pumamarka house, gorgeous views, the trees, the river, the looming presence of the peak Apu Pinkuylluna. I'm wondering if I've made a grave mistake.
Then I wake up in the night to a sliver moon in a mottled sky and I begin to put together a plan. There may be a story here.
Here's what happened. The deal when I moved into casa Pumamarka was that I'd share the downstairs level - kitchen, dining room, bathroom, guest room - with the Lopez-Huallpas, Señora Ricardina, Señor Ivan, for fifteen days, while they finished their new wing.
Twenty-five days passed and not much happened. They were still there, and I was getting skeptical that that concrete slab with its three foot high walls and no sign of water, gas, or electricity, would ever be a kitchen and dining room. I was losing trust - I suspected that their intentions were good but that they were re-thinking the situation and deep down would like to keep my first floor. My feeling for the place was becoming clouded and complicated.
I went back north to close up the Beavers Pond place, join an excursion to Nootka Sound with a pack of Captain Cook aficionados, and bring more stuff up here. Down here. Feels like up to me.
I was really hoping to find my lower floor cleared out when I got back, but no, instead they had moved in more personal stuff - gilded religious sculptures, a big rearing ceramic horse.
I wasn't too much in love with life right then; it looked like my luck was running out - I've always been lucky in a negative sort of way, bad things happen to other people but not to me; this trip though the airlines left one bag in Houston and another passenger took my carry-on and left theirs. My critical replacement ATM card, primary source of funds down here, turned out to be a debit card for which I had no pin. And American banks won't sent a new card or PIN information to Peru. And the 220 volt electricity fritzed the 120 volt table lamp I'd been looking forward to.
I talked with Señora R, she said they'd be out in a week; I said I'd give them to the end of September.
Then I went down to town, to Señora Alicia's little artisan shop - I'd bought a thick orange blanket from her once, I'm under it now, and she'd told me she had some rooms to rent a little ways off, east of town, in the shadow of the principal ruins on Bandolista hill.
The rooms were still there, for cheap; she showed them to me - a second story array, each with a bathroom, looking out over a long greenly gardened lawn with arch-gated wall at the far end. Views over the interesting San Isidro district to the western mountains, green fields and then the town to the east. I said I'd give it some thought.
The next time I talked to her, though,on impulse, I committed, then went back up and told Señora P that I'd be moving at the end of September. She took it pretty well, with this little window-wiping wave goodbye as punctuation. Later though, I felt a little sleazy; I've been forthright with all dealings here and kept my word perfectly, and I'd promised her the end of the month to complete her end.
So I've spent the last three days humping heavy loads down a rocky, muddy trail (currently being torn up by heavy machinery so someone can pull rock off the foot of the mountain. Apu Pinkuylluna isn't going to like that; two locals have told me theres an Inka cemetery buried there) through town, and over rocky dusty roads at the other end. Hard work but I could use to work off an ice cream binge.
Now I wake to that moon. The devil may be in the details (as far as I can see nobody in particular said that first) but I have some control over those details and they are not all bad, not at all.
Ramón came by about six thirty, worked for two hours getting the water going. Might even have a sort of hot shower. I got my bags back, minus the keyboard, and I've ordered another which Tom will ship to me - I mentioned that no online vendors will ship here? - and a superlative Capital One bank customer service agent named Devin talked another department into breaking protocol and giving me a temporary PIN over the phone; I have a working debit card. There are advantages to being near the center of Ollantaytambo, the view to the west is magnificent, and I'm back here, still here, glad to be here. And I may be able to redeem and even enhance this situation at the cost of only $244, and maybe not that.
So here's the story, with a character list to come, and introducing the Cautionary Gringa.
My first night in the new place and I am sad. The floors are cement, it feels like a jail; there is too much light outside at night, a bright light by the wall to this property and blinding guard lights from some building on the hill out the back window, a quarter kilometer off. There's no water. I miss the Pumamarka house, gorgeous views, the trees, the river, the looming presence of the peak Apu Pinkuylluna. I'm wondering if I've made a grave mistake.
Then I wake up in the night to a sliver moon in a mottled sky and I begin to put together a plan. There may be a story here.
Here's what happened. The deal when I moved into casa Pumamarka was that I'd share the downstairs level - kitchen, dining room, bathroom, guest room - with the Lopez-Huallpas, Señora Ricardina, Señor Ivan, for fifteen days, while they finished their new wing.
Twenty-five days passed and not much happened. They were still there, and I was getting skeptical that that concrete slab with its three foot high walls and no sign of water, gas, or electricity, would ever be a kitchen and dining room. I was losing trust - I suspected that their intentions were good but that they were re-thinking the situation and deep down would like to keep my first floor. My feeling for the place was becoming clouded and complicated.
I went back north to close up the Beavers Pond place, join an excursion to Nootka Sound with a pack of Captain Cook aficionados, and bring more stuff up here. Down here. Feels like up to me.
I was really hoping to find my lower floor cleared out when I got back, but no, instead they had moved in more personal stuff - gilded religious sculptures, a big rearing ceramic horse.
I wasn't too much in love with life right then; it looked like my luck was running out - I've always been lucky in a negative sort of way, bad things happen to other people but not to me; this trip though the airlines left one bag in Houston and another passenger took my carry-on and left theirs. My critical replacement ATM card, primary source of funds down here, turned out to be a debit card for which I had no pin. And American banks won't sent a new card or PIN information to Peru. And the 220 volt electricity fritzed the 120 volt table lamp I'd been looking forward to.
I talked with Señora R, she said they'd be out in a week; I said I'd give them to the end of September.
Then I went down to town, to Señora Alicia's little artisan shop - I'd bought a thick orange blanket from her once, I'm under it now, and she'd told me she had some rooms to rent a little ways off, east of town, in the shadow of the principal ruins on Bandolista hill.
The rooms were still there, for cheap; she showed them to me - a second story array, each with a bathroom, looking out over a long greenly gardened lawn with arch-gated wall at the far end. Views over the interesting San Isidro district to the western mountains, green fields and then the town to the east. I said I'd give it some thought.
The next time I talked to her, though,on impulse, I committed, then went back up and told Señora P that I'd be moving at the end of September. She took it pretty well, with this little window-wiping wave goodbye as punctuation. Later though, I felt a little sleazy; I've been forthright with all dealings here and kept my word perfectly, and I'd promised her the end of the month to complete her end.
So I've spent the last three days humping heavy loads down a rocky, muddy trail (currently being torn up by heavy machinery so someone can pull rock off the foot of the mountain. Apu Pinkuylluna isn't going to like that; two locals have told me theres an Inka cemetery buried there) through town, and over rocky dusty roads at the other end. Hard work but I could use to work off an ice cream binge.
Now I wake to that moon. The devil may be in the details (as far as I can see nobody in particular said that first) but I have some control over those details and they are not all bad, not at all.
Ramón came by about six thirty, worked for two hours getting the water going. Might even have a sort of hot shower. I got my bags back, minus the keyboard, and I've ordered another which Tom will ship to me - I mentioned that no online vendors will ship here? - and a superlative Capital One bank customer service agent named Devin talked another department into breaking protocol and giving me a temporary PIN over the phone; I have a working debit card. There are advantages to being near the center of Ollantaytambo, the view to the west is magnificent, and I'm back here, still here, glad to be here. And I may be able to redeem and even enhance this situation at the cost of only $244, and maybe not that.
So here's the story, with a character list to come, and introducing the Cautionary Gringa.
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| View to the west |
Note: the following two posts were written later in the day, but are dated to be sequential for the sake of the story
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