Machu Picchu Day 1.837

Wednesday May 18

Yes, Day 1.837.  I finally have a little more time to write now that everyone is asleep and we are not being help hostage by Starbucks Bandwidth.

I have to say when we hit the Sun Gate, which sits high above Machu Picchu, and looked down after 8 hours on the Inka Trail it was a great feeling. The kids really had stamina though the day and a nice push all the way.  After a few pics and wrestling a Llama into a selfie it was a bumpy downhill bus ride to our hotel and where our next challenge began.

Let me first state that this was the only hotel where we were not able to do some confirmation of our accommodations in English. Being a family of four we have a high preference for being all in the same room and always work to find those hotels where we can make it happen. The Inka Wonder Hotel seemed to fit that bill for Aguas Calientes.  However, Patti was not able to confirm this in person as neither party spoke the others language.  So we enlisted our Puerto Rican neighbor to confirm the details for us. Which she did and all was set...until we arrived and the desk clerk said "no quattro personas".

That was muy mal.

Seeing as how sleeping in the city square was not appealing to us, we made our appeal. "But Senorita, Alicia said that this was OK".  To which the reply came "Alicia no work here".  We returned the volley "But she said it was OK".  Again, "Alicia no work here".  I am now trying to figure out how I can say that when she did, she represented your company and as such you must honor her agreement. Before I could get that our we heard "Alicia never work here.  I don't know why she answer the phone".

Good grief.

Now what? Silent moments passed and somehow Riley sensed that this was the time to put on her pathetically dejected, sad face. I was watching the clerk look at Riley and that did the trick. "OK, I see".  Thanks be to God.  Before we knew it we were in and looking out a cool view down to the river.

Tara called first shower and paid for that eagerness. There was no cold water, who ever heard of that?  Tara had to manage the fine balance between being scorched in the water and chilled in the air. After Tara got out we checked with the desk and they came up and turned the cold water feed back on, which was connected to the toilet as well as the shower. We figured out why they shut off the water, because the toilet ran incessantly and flooded the floor just a little.

After that we grabbed a fantastic dinner with the crew. Tons of food and some great conversation.

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