Jun
19
A review of Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The view from our train as we left Machu Picchu Town
OU Journey to Latin America students stopped by a salt mine on the way to Moray.
Here I am at Moray, the Incas' research field.
Chinchero Catholic Church in Chinchero, Peru
This textile factory in Chinchero was slightly different than the one in Patacancha because it was bigger. One of the leaders of the textile factory spoke Spanish, Quechua and English. The women gave us a full demonstration of how each color of dye is made. They also served us tea and demonstrated weaving techniques.
We all enjoyed our meals and had a great time conversing and getting to know each other at our first dinner in Cuzco.
I had WiFi for the first time in four days, but it didn’t work for me to post any blogs!
The past few days have been crazy dragging around luggage, hiking everywhere and staying in different towns every night.
We visited four towns today, but we are settled in Cuzco for the next four days!
We traveled from Machu Picchu town to Ollantaytambo to Chinchero to Cuzco, stopping at a salt mine, Moray (the Incans’ research field), Chinchero town and church and an indigenous textile factory. So much fun in one day!
This textile factory in Chinchero was slightly different than the one in Patacancha because it was bigger. One of the leaders of the textile factory spoke Spanish, Quechua and English. The women gave us a full demonstration of how each color of dye is made. They also served us tea and demonstrated weaving techniques.
We all bought many textile items from this factory because there were more vendors and items for sale.
We arrived at our hotel in Cuzco, Casa Campesina (“the peasants’ home”) around 8 p.m. We then unloaded our stuff and walked around Cuzco looking for dinner.
We returned from dinner around 11 p.m. As fun as Peru is, customer service is not so great. It’s usually very slow with misunderstanding partly due to language issues.
For example, Jenny and Ravae asked for free pisco sours that came with our dinners. Ravae asked the server three times if the pisco she was ordering is free because that’s all she wanted, and the server said “yes.” The server came back with free pisco sours and two other pisco sours for Ravae and Jenny. Señora Marchand, Dr. Kenney’s wife, explained to the server that the girls only wanted the free drinks, but the server got mad and stormed off.
The server later came back and said she could not take the drinks back because they were ordered and would be charged. Señora Marchand made a compromise: the server took one of the drinks back, and the girls paid for the other.
I found this situation interesting because I have never seen this happen in the United States. I have worked as a server, and I have never acted this way toward customers. We always treated the customers as if they are always right. I never asked the customer to pay for something if there was a misunderstanding, and managers often apologize and give the item to the customer.
In the end, we all enjoyed our meals and had a great time conversing and getting to know each other.
We also left good tips so that the server had enough money to pay for the other pisco sour.
Dr. Kenney likes to joke with us. I’d like to leave this blog entry with a quote from him:
“Let’s leave while Chinh’s in the restroom. She’ll be a lost Hello Kitty. Cats don’t have very big brains, do they?”
My professor is picking on me while abroad, but at least he’s comparing me to my happy little bow-wearing friend, Hello Kitty!
Plus, we all know Hello Kitty and I are very intelligent. 🙂
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