TRANSCONTINENTAL GOODNESS

So it’s been about a week since I have updated the goodness, and I thought it was time to fill you all in.  It has been quite a week!  We traveled out of Cusco for several days into the Sacred Valley and up to Machu Picchu.  We had some wonderful experiences and quite the adventure!  We stayed for a few nights in a town in the Sacred Valley called Ollantaytambo.  It’s a quiet little pueblo filled with tourists, as this is the town where many take to train to Machu Picchu.  Let me give you the rundown of the goodness this week:

Before we left Cusco, we stopped by INTI one last time to say goodbye to the kids.  As I have mentioned before, they offer many different workshops at INTI, including jewelry making.  The children in the jewelry workshop sell the jewelry that they make at INTI, and the profits go directly back to them.  As we were saying our goodbyes (again) my eye caught a pair of earrings on display.  They were an intricate silver design, and I knew I wanted to purchase them.  I found out a young girl of 14, Melissa, made them and she was ecstatic when she heard that one of her jewelry items was getting purchased.  It was a delight for me to be able to boost her self esteem (as I told her “que lindo, que lindo”) or “how beautiful” the earrings were.  I tried in my best Spanish to let her know that I would think of her whenever I wore them!

 

In the town of Ollantaytambo, there are many different restaurants to choose from, and we were recommended several before arriving to the little town.  However, one restaurant in particular, caught our eye.  It’s called “Hearts Cafe” and 100% of the profits go to local organizations that help children.  The NGO Living Heart was founded in August of 2007 by Sonia Newhouse, with the goal of improving the lives of people and communities in the Sacred Valley of Peru.  Living Hearts has developed and instituted  programs in the areas of health and nutrition; education; and cultural and natural conservation. You know that I cannot resist yummy acts of goodness, so I made sure that we ate at Hearts Cafe as often as possible (and might I add, the food was deelish!)

When we finally arrived at Machu Picchu a few days ago, we were disappointed with the weather.  Since Peru has just started their “rainy/wet season” we knew there was a possibility of rain.  Yep, yep, yep, it was a rainy Machu Picchu.  Rain is my least favorite climate by far (unless I am at home all cozy under a blanket with hot chocolate), but I wasn’t going to let it interfere with our Machu Picchu experience!  We decided to climb the huge mountain behind the Machu Picchu ruins called Huayana Picchu.  We were told that it could take at least an hour and a half just to get up there.  We were determined to climb, although it was wet and slippery and the hike up was on very steep rocks.  About 1/3 of the way up, we decided to pause, catch our breath, and take a photo (we had already taken a tour of the Machu Picchu ruins earlier,  and captured at least 100 photos of the us, the ruins, and the ruins and us.)  Somehow as we were getting our camera out, it fell and before I knew what had happened, our camera with all of our wonderful memories, fell off the side of Huayana Picchu (aka: HUGE mountain!).  I was absolutely devastated, and couldn’t hold back emotion.  I was exhausted and soaking wet, and now my Machu Picchu memories were a thing of the past.
Out of the blue, a young man came up to us and asked us what was the matter.  We tried our best in Spanish to explain that our camera fell off the side of the mountain.  He talked very fast in Spanish, but we gathered that he was a worker at Machu Picchu, and that he was going to help us.  Next thing I know, there are two more workers there and they are using rope (it literally looked like a jump rope from elementary school!) to tie one of the men to the railing and then repel him off the mountain.  They kept saying “No worry, we find it.”  I thought this was extremely kind and generous of these men to do this for us.  I kept telling them “Por favor cuidado!  Tu vida es mas importante que mi camera!” (I hopefully said “Please be careful! Your life is more important than my camera!” ) The man had no problem repelling himself of the side of the mountain, and within a couple of minutes, as promised he found our camera!
I was in absolute shock at the entire situation.  First of all, I couldn’t believe that our camera fell in the first place (it was one of those slow motion experiences) and then, there was no way that I could believe that a complete stranger would risk his life (even if he was a Machu Picchu “professional”, what he did was absolutely dangerous!) to help out someone who was emotionally distraught about losing her Machu Picchu “memories.”    The most amazing thing?  The camera still worked!
Matt and I are extremely appreciative and grateful to these wonderful men who so selflessly helped us.  This experience reminded me  of all the good people there are all over the world.  I truly thank them from the bottom of my heart!  Since this was such an extreme act of goodness that I experienced, I wanted to share it with all of you.
And wouldn’t ya know it, we caught a lot of this whole experience on video!   You definitely want to check this out!

And lastly to wrap up the goodness for this week, we have been trying to help out a little lodge that we stayed at in Ollantaytambo.  We were recommended to stay at Apu Lodge from a friend that we met here in Cusco.  We had such a wonderful experience there, that we decided we wanted to help the very sweet owner get more business. (Her lodge is located a little bit out of the center of town, and you wouldn’t be able to find it, if you weren’t give an recommendation.  It is also a relatively new place, so we wanted to help spread the positive press.) We placed a review on Trip Advisor (we have been using that site as a great resource while traveling ourselves) and we have been spreading the word to those we know, as well as posting flyers and business cards at places where people who are looking to go to Ollantaytambo (again, this little town is where MANY go before making the trek to Machu Picchu) would be.  We hope by word of mouth we can help bring this little lodge some good business!

Us at the Apu Lodge in Ollantaytambo

SO, there’s the goodness rundown for the week!  Thanks for continuing to tune in, as I do my best to keep you updated from the road. Please also check our travel blog: www.RandomActsofTravel.com to get more updates on our adventures while traveling! Until next time…