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big view
as seen from the parking lot below, madre tierra rambles up the deep green hillsideGreetings from Madre Tierra Resort & Spa located in the Valley of Vilcabamba which is in Ecuador's southernmost province, Loja. Madre Tierra (which means Mother Earth) first opened over 30 years ago. Traces of the original backpackers' guest house remain, even as it has been expanded and updated through the years by various different owners. My first visit to this hostel was in 1988 while I was teaching at the American School in Quito. I went back once in 2003, and now have just completed a six week job as substitute manager there. .
As my loyal blog readers will know, I have been working regularly as a substitute hotel manager on the coast for the past few years. One of the hotel guests from Mandala put me in contact with the owners of Madre Tierra and they needed a replacement while they traveled to the US. For me it was interesting to see how many of the skills I've developed translated well to this new job. Although MT was a much slower pace, it was still a challenging job. It's always demanding to manage personnel and to deal with the wants & needs
Many Moods of Mandango
The Kichwas believed that this mountain was a sleeping Inca king. I love watching the changing light. of every guest who passes through.
Once again I was working in an exquisitely beautiful setting. From the restaurant terrace at Mandala there are stunning views of the ocean. At Madre Tierra the restaurant looks out on Mandango Mountain, whose summit the Kichwas believe represents a sleeping Inca king. Looking at the silhouette of the hillside, you can imagine that you see the hawk-nosed profile of a strong-featured Incan visage. I never tired of staring out at the mountain at all times of day. As dusk begins to fall (year round 5:30-6:00 pm) the foreground takes on dimension, the foothills standing out in the the glow of evening light. Sometimes I'd get a glimpse and think they looked like limbs sprawling into the valley below.
Vilcabamba has long held fame as the Valley of Longevity. Indeed the area has an astoundingly large population of old folks (in their 90's and even many over 100!) It's not uncommon to see wizened men (probably in their 70's & 80's) still working their fields, and tiny hunched women walking long distances carrying huge bundles of herbs and grasses (probably
Mandango Glow
Dominating the valley, we enjoy direct views from the restaurant terrace. for the 'cuy' guinea pigs they raise in the warmth of their woodfire kitchens). The quality of the air and water in this valley combine with near perfect weather to create ideal conditions for graceful aging. Most days are in the 70's & 80's (fahrenheit), nighttime temps 50's-60's. I arrived at the very end of rainy season and enjoyed the exuberant blooming of roses in the first few weeks of dry season - enormous blossoms in dozens of colors - my fave was a tie-dye red/white striated bloom.
During the past decade Vilcabamba and neighboring valleys have become a hub for North American retirees seeking healthful / alternative lifestyles. The area is now home to a disproportionate number of non-Ecuadorians, many of them vegans, raw-foodists, breatharians (those who take nourishment only from air? not sure...). There are folks living off the land - getting back to nature, hippie couples with kids, aging hippies, hippie wannabes. Some move to Vilcabamba to heal - many seriously ill people find unique alternative health treatments; there are pyramids and sweat lodges, energy healing, detox treatments, touch therapies and more.
Since
My Room
aka "The Bowling Alley", it was designed as a dressing room for the conference center/theater. wacky & fun! I kept busy with my work, I didn't get down to town much (the hotel is about a mile from the main square), but I had the chance to meet a lot of expats residents who came regularly to eat at the restaurant (lots of vegetarian & vegan options on the menu). I guess I never thought about it before, but I was surprised to learn that strict vegans won't eat honey. I suppose its production does contribute to the death of bees. I got into & listened in on many interesting conversations. Among the diners: conspiracy theorists, gun-toting survivalists, ecological activists and those who believe that the valley is regularly visited by UFOs. Lots of new age ideas, &'different'-thinking folks; finding like-minded others and freely expressing ideas that might be well be considered too radical where they come from.
My daily schedule was from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm. I usually managed to escape the reception area for at least an hour or two once (or even twice!) a day. The room where I was staying was originally designed as a dressing room for the conference center/theater that was built by the
Doorway to my room
Complete with bat poop designs on the wall! previous owners. This large meeting room has inlaid wooden floors, mirrored columns and walls, mosaic details and even rooftop skylights that resemble UFOs! My room (aptly nicknamed 'the bowling alley'😉 was a long, narrow space with a rock counter-top along one wall set up with mirrors for hair & make-up stations for 4 or 5 performers. I especially loved the oval shower, completely lined with gorgeous stones.
Only a few downsides of my lodging: right on the edge of the property it was a bit too close to the neighbor's house. Their large black shepherd dog, Martin(I know his name because the lady was always yelling at him) would bark what seemed like for hours on end. The way we were situated in the crook of the valley, his deep barks would echo back, and I am convinced that he thought there was another dog responding, so he would answer (again & again!). I kept hoping that Martin's 'dad' would figure out how his fancy car alarm worked; every night at 11:00 pm and every morning before 6:00 am he would make the alarm sound for several minutes (argh!) Also, the family's chickens
sissy & fake cat
there are sand-filled kitty doorstops all around the lodge, and sissy stops to sniff every one! worked their way through the bamboo fencing and scratched endlessly, making rustling noises in the dry leaves and underbrush (I kept thinking there was someone moving around just outside my room, and then I remembered that it was just the chickens!).
Each night the guardian would arrive at precisely 9:00 pm and I would tiredly make my way back to my room, passing by the fragrant night-blooming jasmine bushes; in Spanish these sweetly scented flowers are called Caballero de la Noche - Gentleman of the Night. As I approached my room I'd catch a whiff of the guava tree, a fruity (almost fermented) fragrance. The bats love the fruit of this tree; indeed the walls and door or my room were nightly splattered with bat poop - very organic! Exhausted as I felt, once I climbed in bed I was often unable to fall asleep (too much stuff running around my brain). My bedside reading material, The Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux, generally proved to be an effective soporific. A fascinating novel about a train journey from Boston to Tierra del Fuego, but written with such dense description that it helped put me
Sissy got a bath!
Me on the other side of the reception desk, cuddling the shivering pup! to sleep.
One of the more joyous aspects of this job was helping to care for the owners' dog, Sissy. She's a fluffy, feisty little 6 yr old Shihuahua -- no, that's not a typo -- she's a Shitsu/Chihuahua mix (perhaps I should call her a Chihuatsu?) with a wicked-adorable underbite. On our evening walks back to the room, Sissy would always stop to make peepee, lifting her leg like a male dog! Her bed was nestled in the corner under the make-up counter in my room, but on nights when there was a fiesta in the village she would tremble with fear at the sound of the firecrackers and scurry into the curtained-off space under the sink (I eventually put a blanket under there for her).
Sissy also had a variety of hiding-places in the reception area - under the stairs, on the bottom shelf of a bookcase, or in her little zip-up travel bed. Sissy loved her potato-sized hand-knit toy, but one day it disappeared. We finally found it several days later up in a tree! No doubt a pesky squirrel had appropriated it
Mischevious Grin
My adolescent pal, Alicia. To help her with her writing in English, we passed a dialogue journal back and forth. because Sissy surely didn't climb that tree! Freshly shorn at the start of my stay, her curly fur grew quite a bit while I was there. "She's getting fat!" exclaimed the morning cook. "No," I insisted, "that's just her fur growing out!" Perhaps I could use that excuse as well, "I'm not gaining weight, I just need a haircut!"
Eleven year-old Alicia who lived across the way came over to help me feed and bathe little Sissy. Alicia's dad is co-owner of the hotel with his brother. Their family tends the nearby organic farm and much of the produce for the hotel restaurant comes from the farm. There was an ample harvest of camote, beautiful purple Andean sweet potato,one of which weighed over 15 lbs (camote grandote!) We added a special to the menu: Sweet Potato Fries (awesomely delicious with homemade mayonnaise!) Another favorite menu item of mine was the hummus or guacamole served with the delectable dehydrated tomato-&-flaxseed crackers (so yummy!). Also the just picked oranges, tangerines & grapefruits made the yummiest juices!
Alicia attends an alternative school in town, classes taught in Spanish. To
Beatrice's Bounty
from the farm across the way, daily deliveries of fresh vegetables make their way into yummy salads & soups raise funds for the school, the kids help make and sell jam, handicrafts, etc. Alicia's mother is Swiss and the family mostly speaks German at home. Chatting with her mom one day, we decided that I'd help Alicia with her writing in English. Early in my stay we began a dialogue journal, a teaching technique I'd learned about in grad school and had tried out with my students in Malaysia and with 11-yr old Annie Feldman when I lived in Benin.
Alicia and passed a spiral notebook back and forth, each writing a full page most every day. I helped her learn about rhyming, homonyms, apostrophes, commas, capitalization, quotation marks, paragraph breaks and general spelling rules. I enjoyed her enthusiasm and creativity! The last few days we sat side-by-side and wrote wacky/fun stories, each adding the next few sentences. Alicia's brothers (ages 15 & 18) were also a lot of fun to tease and joke with. They would all come over to the hotel for lunch (and occasionally dinner) and I really enjoyed dining as part of a family unit.
I took a fall during my
camote grandote
a freshly picked grapefruit atop a huge record-breaking sweet potato (camote) first week of work, slipping on some tile (it didn't look wet but had gotten some spray from the night's rain). I landed flat on my back and bumped my head on the wall and my elbow on the step. Yowch! The kitchen staff came running out and helped me up, but within 15 minutes my back had seized up and I could barely walk upright. I was fortunate to be able to have a healing treatment within an hour of my fall. Brian is a physical therapist whose been working with Snickers, the horse across the way. Lucky for me, he also works on humans! Using deep massage to first loosen my muscles and release tension, Brian was then able to gently adjust my spine...actually, my neck, shoulder and low back practically popped themselves back into place.
The following day Brian returned to give me another treatment, using a special electric current machine which stimulates blood flow to speed healing and can also be used to give facelifts (which last only a month or two). I felt so much better after those two sessions, though I still woke up sore & stiff
Rosa en cocina
wonderful open kitchen, fabulous healthy food! most mornings, and was even able to manage the stairs (slowly). Since the hotel is built on a hillside, I got a fair amount of exercise just showing rooms (especially the cabanas 100 steps up from reception!). As part of my contract, I negotiated weekly spa treatments (ahh!). A massage or a facial served as enforced relaxation on stressful days or when long hours and no days off got me too revved.
One of the tasks I completed while subbing was to create a Spa Music Mix (15 hrs on a flash drive) so the gals didn't have to keep changing (and scratching) the CDs. I also engineered a music mix for the restaurant, including Andean pan flute tunes. As one of them played, the girls in the kitchen started giggling. "What?" I inquired. They explained that that particular tune is actually a funeral dirge; the radio station always plays it as obituaries are read. My other assignments included translating into Spanish both the web page & the guest books which are left in each room. It was good linguistic practice and I learned a lot as I worked with the reception staff
Aura in reception
painting wooden keychain fobs -- hotel rule of thumb: the bigger they are the less likely they are to disappear to fine tune my translations. In my free time I also created a room cleaning roster/checklist as well as a more efficient format for logging spa reservations.
The staff at Madre Tierra is fabulous! I immediately established great rapport with them and I found that they gave 110% when their work was acknowledged and appreciated. Most have been working there for many years, through a series of owners and interim administrators. They see how the place has been run and is being run now and know what needs to be done. Quite a lot of the tasks that fall solely to me on the coast are handled by the employees here. I worked with two excellent bilingual receptionists (who were also servers for the restaurant) and a skilled bookkeeper. The kitchen staff was responsible for ordering supplies and, what most impressed me about this team is that they really worked as a team. If there were no treatments scheduled in the spa, the massage therapist helped clean rooms or do laundry. When there was enough fresh bread the baker washed dishes or swept walkways. I seldom had to ask anybody to pitch in
The Empress of Bread
Just as she has done for over 20 yrs, Emperatriz (her name means empress) kneads the dough for eight rounds of whole wheat/sesame bread. Yum! -- they simply knew what needed doing and so picked up a bucket or broom.
The morning cook, Rosa, was responsible for preparing the staff lunch each day. Now, there's only one food on the planet that I cannot eat and that's bell peppers (they make me throw up). The garden was producing tons of peppers and it just made sense to use them, so Rosa would always carefully remove a portion of whatever she was cooking up and set it aside for me before adding the peppers to the rest. I thanked her, saying how nice it was of her to take care of me. Her response: "Well, it's just that I don't want to have to see you vomit!" Rosa had a most unique English vocabulary -- would hear her come up with words like: crispy, sunny-side up, expensive, overcooked...
Margarita, the cleaning gal, was brewing up a cure for the arthritis in her feet and ankles: She picked spicy chili peppers from the garden and sliced them into an empty soy sauce bottle. She poured in some 'trago' (local rotgut cane liquor) and
Julia with broom
My Spanish name is Julia, so I call her my "tocaya" - namesake. then had to bury the bottle for a month. It was still underground when I left, but supposedly this spicy pickled mixture can be rubbed onto sore areas and offers lasting relief. The maintenance/gardening crew (Luis & Mario) helped out with heavy cleaning (power-washing the stone planters in the dining area, taking down wasps' nests and spider webs from high windows, changing difficult-to-reach light bulbs. Luis is an orchid aficionado and tends the shady greenhouse area beside the pool. I asked him to bring some of his best blooming plants up to the restaurant and we situated them so that all could appreciate their exquisite, long-lasting blossoms!
Hotel management offers a variety of tasks and challenges every day. I (generally) enjoy the constant interaction with people, be it the staff, the providers, or the guests. The best part of this kind of job is all the interesting & amazing folks you meet, all with fascinating experiences to recount. I enjoyed having opportunities to speak French and guests from France are always surprised and pleased when someone addresses them in their native tongue. We also received a family who lives on a French island
downtown Vilcabamba
one of the last old buildings standing, against a green hillside backdrop. a beautiful valley with hills all around. in the Caribbean and a couple from New Caledonia in Polynesia. While most tourists stay only a few nights or maybe a week, we had several long-stay guests at the hotel. Everyone has a reason for having found this magical place, and I never tire of hearing each person's story. When there's a particularly lovey-dovey couple I often ask how they met. One guy told me that Adrienne had been the first girl he ever kissed when she was 14 yrs old. Each went on to live their own lives, and they met again 40 years later. They'd been married for a year and a half and told me that they treat every journey as a honeymoon!
A few linguistic quirks: I saw the word 'Peipol' in an email and assumed it was a misspelling of 'people'. Upon further inquiry I discovered that it was actually the phonetic spelling of 'PayPal' (according to Spanish pronunciation). I had an "aha" moment while helping Margarita find the right weight of bedspread/quilt for a demanding guest. The Spanish term, 'edredon' must come from the German 'eiderdown' or goose-down comforters.
Please be sure to view all
purple orchid
Luis brought some of his wildly blooming orchids to the reception area so we could appreciate them up close. of the photos below -- lots of amazing flowers!!
I would love to hear from you if you read & liked this blog entry! Hugs from Ecuador!! Jill
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Sarese
non-member comment
Looks wonderful!
Glad the world is still beautiful, is the massage guy cute?