San Ramon Part 2.

I'd like to thank the ladies in the kitchen today, bless them, but it was a game of two halves. Love them dearly, but it was blatantly obvious they'd never had to feed a horde of teenage boys before.

Breakfast was pure chaos. The plan – rolls and jam first, then more rolls with eggs. The reality – rolls went out, eggs weren't even on the pan yet, boys circling like hungry sharks.

Tables swapped, boys moved, no one knew who had rolls, who hadn't, then eggs landed late with no bread to go with them. It was carnage.

Pretty sure the JW team leaders had a quiet word in the ladies' ears because, fair enough, it was mayhem. Maree and I just did our usual Kiwi tornado routine , serving, cleaning, washing dishes, sweeping floors, plugging gaps wherever needed. The other helpers? Might as well have been on another planet.

Once the boys were finally fed, there’s this thing I really love about this kitchen. The staff gather, plates in hand, sit together for a breather and a feed. It's warm, it’s real, and there’s always a laugh shared before the next round of chaos.

We swapped our kitchen hats for cleaning rags and got on with toilets, cabins, and bed-making. Not too many today, thankfully, because we were back on dinner duty later.

Life here feels lazy compared to the bikes. No big climbs, no lung-busting rides, just carbs on carbs on carbs with a whisper of meat. Makes me feel heavy, but hey, can't complain. We lost a fair bit of weight on the bikes, a few more spuds won’t hurt before we roll again.

Dinner service? Slick as a whistle. Plates ready before the boys came through, meals served in sync, everyone happy, no chaos this time. What a difference a bit of prep makes.

Breakfast was a breeze today, the ladies in the kitchen had it sussed. Instead of yesterday’s chaos, they pumped out rolls like sloppy joes, piled high and easy to sling at the boys. The JW team leaders kept the teens anchored in one spot, no mad scramble, no flying rolls. Just smooth sailing.

Maree and I did our usual stock-standard service and clean-up, happy to be in the kitchen instead of scrubbing toilets. Honestly, the kitchen ladies are legends, full of laughs and kindness. Shame about the servers – they still move slower than a sloth on sleeping pills.

After breakfast, Rocio let us know we had today and tomorrow off cleaning. Bloody brilliant. We actually got to just relax for once. I kept up my stretches – gotta do what I can for this nerve – but otherwise, the day was about kicking back.

The boys were sticking around for lunch before heading off, so we jumped in to help feed and water them one last time. Plates flew out, bellies got filled, and we scrubbed the aftermath. Then the wait began – everyone hanging around for the big farewell. Out came a beer from the head kitchen lady, and before we knew it, we were sipping away with the whole crew, sharing laughs.

By the time the JW brigade finally departed, it was pushing 5pm. Maree had stashed a bottle of wine from her last San Ramón mission, so we cracked it open on the porch. Wine turned into whiskey, which turned into dancing naked in the moonlight – because why the hell not? Life’s short, and moments like these are worth.

Today was a rare luxury, no cabins to scrub, no pool to sweep, no ant nests to accidentally declare war on. Just me, Maree, the jungle air, and time to think.

I’ve been chewing over this blasted pinched nerve for days. Physio, chiro, massage – yeah, they all help for a bit, but unless I fix the root cause, I’m just slapping plasters on the problem. So, I sat down with my bike, determined to figure it out once and for all.

First stop, saddle height – spot on. Reach to the bars – seemed sweet too. But then it hit me, staring at my Jones H loop bar: it’s bloody huge. Way wider than my shoulders, way wider than feels natural. How had I not clocked this earlier?

I’ve known for years that outdoor gear is mostly made for men – boots, packs, harnesses, you name it – and we women just have to “make do.”

Handlebars? That one slipped under my radar. Turns out, having your arms stretched too wide compresses the muscles around your shoulder blades and strains everything from your neck down. No wonder my nerve feels like it’s been in a vice.

So I did some measurements. My sweet spot is around 500mm. My old butterfly bars were 600mm max and felt perfect. Jonesie here is wider than a bull’s shoulders, and I’m paying for it with every nerve scream down my arm.

I’m now on a mission, find a butterfly bar, ditch this man-sized handlebar, and give my poor arm a fighting chance. Until then, I’m religious with my stretches, doing everything I can to coax my body back to pain-free pedalling.

Today was one of those days where the work doesn’t feel like work – just good, solid graft under a hot jungle sun. Me on the weed wacker, Maree pushing the lawn mower, both of us carving little patches of order into this wild green tangle we’re calling home for now.

It was all fun and games until I sliced straight over an ants’ nest. Holy hell, instant fire feet! I was off like a startled possum, sprinting barefoot toward the river, yelling a few words Mum wouldn’t approve of. Those little bastards had gone full kamikaze, biting like their lives depended on it.

Turns out Crocs aren’t exactly jungle-protective footwear. Who knew? Rocio had a laugh, then dug out a pair of old boots for me, bless her. I swallowed an antihistamine, shook off the battle scars, and got back in the game, a bit wiser and slightly itchier.

By lunchtime we were drenched in sweat and grins. Rocios brother must’ve seen the state of us because she plonked two ice-cold beers on the table. We downed them like marathon runners crossing the finish line – two gulps, done.

That combo of heat, hard yakka, and beer left me wobbly. After a cool dip in the river and my usual round of nerve stretches, the only thing I was capable of was a good old nana nap. Out like a light, dreaming of anything but ants.

The afternoon drifted by quietly, just us and the jungle hum. Over dinner, we tossed around plans for Cusco, we’ve got a couple of Workaway applications in, one for a dog rescue and another for an organic farm. Fingers crossed one bites.

Because as much as I love this place, the itch for what’s next (and not just ant bites) is creeping in.

Today, we stepped straight into a parallel universe. You know the kind where everything looks normal, but nothing makes a lick of sense.

Yesterday, we’d had this lovely, heart-on-the-sleeve yarn with Rocio, telling her how much we admired her passion and drive. Somewhere in there, though, we slipped in the tiny detail that cleaning isn’t exactly our life’s calling. The way we meant it was: “We don’t love cleaning, but for you, Rocio, we’ll do it.”

This morning, bless her, she must’ve taken that the wrong way. She tried to go easy on us ,handed us a broom and said, “Just sweep the floors.”

The problem? There wasn’t much to sweep until the bathrooms and beds were done… and that wasn’t our job today. So we were left standing there, twiddling our thumbs, trying to look busy while doing sweet F-all.

Then everything went sideways. Rocio was swamped, the cabins were in chaos, and we tried to help but had no bloody clue what had been done, what hadn’t, or what needed doing. It was like walking into someone else’s kitchen mid-cook and not knowing if the pasta was drained or the sauce was burnt. Frustrating as hell.

Later, I sat down with Rocio and set the record straight. “Look, we might not dream about scrubbing toilets, but we’re here to work. Lay it on, baby. We’ll smash it out.”

My first gig today? Chief photographer. A pack of bikers had hooned in late last night, engines still roaring in my ears this morning, so I grabbed the camera and went to work. Click, click, click – got some solid shots that Rocio can chuck on social media if she wants to brag about the chaos her lodge attracts.

Then the real fun began.

Peru has a bit of a “she’ll be right” attitude when it comes to building stuff. This eco-lodge is no different. It’s been growing and morphing for twenty years, and it shows – drains running uphill, pipes doing U-turns, you name it. One of the sewage drains had decided to stop cooperating. Enter Maree, all excited to put her drainlayer trade to good use, and me… her humble apprentice.

We spent hours in the hot sun digging up a pipe that some absolute genius had laid on an incline. Yes, you read that right – the sewage pipe went uphill. Physics says no, common sense says no, yet here we were knee-deep in dirt proving both points.

New pipe, a bit of know-how (all Maree), and we finally got their shit sorted. Literally. I’ll tell ya what though, the smell wasn’t winning any awards.

When the tools were down, we legged it to the river for a much-needed dunk. The cold water hit like a reset button after all that hot, stinky graft.

Afternoons here are always the same – lazy, slow, easy. We just flop around till feed time at 7pm, then laze some more. Life’s not bad when you’re earning your dinner one sewage pipe at a time.

This place has been the perfect spot to rest my arm. Afternoons here are for one thing only – rest – and we’ve loved it. Honestly, I think our bodies have enjoyed the downtime too.

But with only two days left, “rest” wasn’t really on the cards. Maree decided she could fix the restaurant’s sewage problem, which made me her trusty apprentice. Translation: digging trenches and hauling up drain pipes in the blazing sun. Every time the owners walked past and saw how much we’d done, they looked quietly stunned. We’re fast. Too fast for them, maybe.

The thing about us – we work. We smash through jobs. Maree is a machine at getting things done, while I’m the ideas girl, the one who can dream up a fix on the fly. Put that together and you’ve got one hell of a team.

By midday it was stupidly hot, so we followed our now-daily ritual – plunge into the cool river before lunch like a couple of jungle Wim Hofs. Then it was back to our “usual positions” on the porch. I dozed in the hammock, Maree fell down some internet rabbit holes.

Some might call it lazy. I call it healing. We’re ready to move again, ready for new adventures… but we’ll be sad to leave this place and these people behind.