The White House Easter Egg Roll is one of the oldest and most unusual traditions in presidential history. It has gone through many transformations over the years, with new surprises with each presidential administration coming into office.

Many Washington families, including those of the President, enjoyed rolling eggs on Easter Monday. At this point, it was still an informal, unofficial activity. Historians have a split opinion on who was the first to suggest a public egg roll. Some believe it was Dolly Madison, while others think informal egg-rolling festivities at the White House only go back to President Abraham Lincoln’s administration.

Nevertheless, at first, the public egg rolls were not held at the White House but at the Capitol. Press releases told of Washington children of all ages coming to roll eggs at the Capitol, as early as 1872.

The children of Washington were not quite as angelic as their parents would have preferred. These children caused such a ruckus, and caused such considerable damage to the Capitol grounds, that in 1876, Congress passed the Turf Protection Law to ban Washington children from using these grounds for a playground in subsequent years. Mother Nature rained out the event in 1877; in 1878, a small announcement in the local newspaper informed the community that the egg rollers were not to use the Capitol grounds that year.

A small controversy ensued. Depending upon who was relating the story, one version said angry egg rollers stormed the gates of the White House, demanding they be given admittance to the President’s lawn so that they might roll their eggs. The other side of the story credits President Rutherford B. Hayes, having heard about the children’s plight, opening the gates to the South Lawn. No matter who to believe - the first White House Egg Roll occurred in 1878.

And so, in 1878, President Hayes and his wife, Lucy, officially opened the South Lawn for egg rolling. This Easter tradition has been observed ever since; the only cancellations were due to inclement weather and during World War I and World War II. During wartime, instead of using the White House grounds, egg rollers were seen around town, on the grounds of the Washington Monument and the National Zoo. Some even had the audacity to return to the Capitol grounds.

In the course of time, the Egg Rolls have gradually changed, bringing in additional games and entertainment. The new games became part of the festivities by the late 1800s: “Egg Picking,” “Egg Ball,” “Toss and Catch,” and “Egg Croquet” became favorites.

1899 brought John Philip Sousa and “The President’s Own” Marine Band to the party, while vendors sold all kinds of goods to the attendees. Forty years later, President Herbert Hoover’s wife, Lou Hoover, introduced folk and maypole dances but they proved not to be practical when combined with hard-boiled eggs.

1974 was a hallmark year for the egg-rolling portion of the festivities. For the first time, spoons borrowed from the White House kitchen made their entrance. In 1977, new amusements included a circus and a petting zoo. 1981 brought Broadway shows and giant balloons. 1981 also brought egg hunt pits where children could search for autographed wooden eggs hidden in the straw pits.

From the very beginning of the public egg rolls, it has been customary for the Presidents, First Ladies, their children, grandchildren and family pets to attend the party. And what would Easter be without the Easter Bunny? This lovable critter was the brainchild of Pat Nixon, President Richard Nixon’s wife, in 1969. The Bunny is usually played by a White House staffer wearing the official White House rabbit suit.

When the young guests prepare to say good-bye, they each receive a special presidential wooden egg, signed by the President and the First Lady.

Tickets to the Easter Egg Roll are free but still rather difficult to obtain, being distributed on a first-come, first-served basis starting 2 days before the actual Egg Roll. Only 5 tickets per person are issued; although children of all ages may attend, at least one child 7 years old or younger must be with the group. Once the gates open at 8 a.m. Easter Monday, groups of roughly 300 ticket holders are admitted at 15-minute intervals.

Egg salad, anyone?

Terry Kaufman is Chief Editorial Writer for Niftykitchen.com, Niftyhomebar.com, and Niftygarden.com.

©2007 Terry Kaufman.

While there are many ways to build a list for free on the internet there are only a few that stand out and produce the best results and the most responsive subscribers. If used correctly these strategies can literally generate thousands of leads for your opt in list and it won’t cost you anything to implement them.

Viral Ebooks

If you already have a newsletter or ezine you can create free reports that are closely related to the subject of your opt in list as this will mean that the people reading them will be more likely to subscribe. These reports only need to be 20 to 30 pages long but should be high quality to ensure that readers will circulate them.

To motivate people to actually promote your viral ebooks its a good idea to allow affiliates to customise them so that they can earn commissions from people who buy any products that are recommended in the content. You can either include recommendations for your own products or other people’s products.

Each report that you create will contain details about your website and will encourage readers to subscribe to your newsletter or ezine to get more information that will benefit them. Its best to write a short introduction on the first page of the report that explains what your opt in list is about and you can also include details at the end of the report.

By far the most popular and reliable format for viral reports is PDF because its compatible with all types of computers and the documents always look exactly the same for all senders and receivers regardless of the hardware or software used which is important if you want to reach as many people as possible.

If you don’t have a newsletter or ezine you can start building your own opt in list by offering a free report on your website using a squeeze page to collect leads. When people subscribe your auto responder will instantly send the instructions for downloading your free report.

There have been some very successful examples of people using this strategy recently and the one thing they had in common was that the subject of the report was controversial and really attracted attention. Because the subject matter sparked a massive debate on the forums it increased the viral nature of the report which made it more successful.

But as well as being controversial it also works well if your report is about something different and unique such as a new marketing strategy. The most recent example of this was the seven dollar secrets ebook which was a huge success because it offered a new way to sell products on the internet.

Articles

Writing articles and submitting them to article directories can generate a massive amount of free traffic for your website if done correctly. Once you submit them your articles will keep sending highly targeted visitors to your website over a long period of time which can result in a steady flow of subscribers for your opt in list.

The secret to maximising the amount of traffic you generate is to target long tail keyword phrases that have less competition than the most popular keywords in your chosen niche. For example, instead of using a keyword phrase such as “weight loss” which has a lot of competition, its far better to use a keyword phrase which has less competition such as “fast weight loss tips”.

So the first thing you need to do is find keyword phrases that are related to your website (using a keyword research tool such as Good Keywords). You are looking for keyword phrases that have around a thousand searches per month in Overture (which is only a fraction of how many times it will be searched for in Google).

Then you need to write an article which is highly optimised for this keyword phrase so that it ranks first on the search engine results page. The best article directory on the internet for achieving high rankings is called Ezine Articles and its the only one you need to use for this strategy.

The title is the most important part of the article and it should contain the keyword phrase as this will quickly attract the search engine robots and get your article listed in the results pages for that specific keyword phrase so that whenever someone searches for it your article will appear at the top.

The keyword density of the article is also important and you should include the keyword phrase you are targeting at least three times in the actual content of the article. Just remember not use it too many times as this will actually harm your rankings due to keyword stuffing.

The resource box should include a brief description about your website and what you are offering and you should also use the keyword phrase as the anchor text for your link. You should aim to write at least 300 words and create an interesting article that is of high quality and easy to read.

This article was written by Simon Akers who is the editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed and increase your profits: http://www.MarketingOasis.com

What potential owners are looking for when reviewing businesses for sale is some assurance that this year’s income can be repeated or improved into the future. A starting point for this is evaluating whether the stated profits are real.

A potential owner reviewing the performance of a business over several years may be presented with a substantial difference between the current years EBIT and previous years. They will need to determine the source of the difference, whether it is due to improved business performance or is a change in the way the business finances have been accounted for.

While Australia’s accounting standards have generally prevented the sort of creative accounting that is commonplace in China (for example amortising future earnings). This does not mean that the calculation of the Earning Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) or Earnings Before Interest ,Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) are not subject to adjustment depending on who the primary audience is.

As a general rule the two primary audiences of these figures are the owners themselves and the Tax Office. In these circumstances the owners are often prepared to see the numbers legally realigned to provide less revenue to the tax office. However when it comes time to sell, these numbers may not do justice to the business and subsequently devalue the business. Which is one of the reasons why preparing a business for sale can take a little longer than many people expect.

Typically a privately owned business will have its financial affairs integrated with the individual owners to minimise tax without exposing personal assets to business risk. These structures can be quite complicated and need to be unravelled prior to selling the business. Once the business has been isolated in this way, it financial performance may appear to be very different from previous years.

The challenge for potential business owners is determining if the newly stated performance is genuine or if other things need to be brought into consideration. For example is the salary of the owner included in the profit figures or accounted for separately as a business cost.

You may need an accountant to determine what the real profit is, but it is important to understand that there may be a good reason for significant adjustments to reported profits, and if there is you may well have found your next accountant. Either way the key question to ask is what are the comparable revenue, costs, and margins over the last three to five years and how have the been accounted for. Only then will you know if the profits are real.

BizExchange has hundreds of genuine businesses listed for sale with separate fields for Turnover, EBIT and key person salary to make it easier to see at a glance how profitable a business really is.

BIzExchange is an independent marketplace for businesses for sale or business seeking investment in Australia http://www.bizexchange.com.au/

Homeowner’s Insurance

There are 6 different types of homeowners insurance in general that are consistently utilized. If you ask your friends and family, chances are they all have different home insurance rates. Homeowners insurance protects the homeowner from financial losses against theft, storms, fire, flood (if you have a flood endorsement)and all other causes explained in your policy.

As you can see a general rule of thumb is at least three homeowner insurance quotes should do the trick in helping you find the best possible policy for your situation. After receiving all of your free insurance quotes you should use the following four criteria to pick the policy that’s right for you. It’s a good idea when shopping for homeowner insurance rates to combine your auto policy in the quote. For additional discounts would apply with most carrier.

When shopping for homeowner policy rates be sure and understand the difference between replacement cost and actual cash value. Your insurance company will reimburse you for the cost of replacing your suitcase and whatever its content is if it were lost or stolen when you were away on vacation, but only for replacing them with the personal property of the same kind and quality. But with todays deductibles you may want to consider the overall cost prior to filing a claim.

After any disaster that ruins your home, you should call your insurance agent immediately and report the damages. First of all, homeowner insurance policies not only cover homes against disasters and damages; they also cover you, your family members and your pets for any liability and responsibility in causing damage to someone else’s property. The other major division of the homeowner insurance policy is the liability protection it offers to the policyholder and to his or her family members.

Homeowner’s insurance is the answer to this problem. I shopped carefully before picking a new homeowner’s insurance company. Here are some reasons why you should get homeowner’s insurance.

There are two reasons to take inventory of your home for your homeowner’s insurance policy. Purchasing a homeowner’s insurance policy can help you plan for, as well as be protected against, many emergencies regarding your home. By purchasing adequate homeowner’s insurance, you can rest assured that you, your family, and your home will be protected against such situations.

The amount of that insurance coverage is about 50% of the policy limit on your home. The correct square footage is very important because the online insurance calculators determine the actual cost to rebuild your home based on your square footage calculation. There are many homeowner insurance policies available in the market.

Actual Cash Value - Actual cash value is one way the insurance companies settle losses. Which means if you have storm damage to the roof of your home and the roof shingles are 10 years old. The insurance company only owes for 1/2 of the cost to replace that roof system, less your deductible.

Dwelling: This section of the policy covers areas such as the house and also the structures and built in appliances including plumbing, heating, permanently installed air condition systems and the electrical fittings. Home Owners Insurance provides detailed information about home owners insurance, home owners insurance faq, homeowner insurance companies, homeowner insurance policies and more.

Get quotes from different companies to get an idea of what coverage they are offering and also the associated discount packages. You should look for quotes from some companies to get an idea of what coverage they offer and the associated discount packages. Most homeowners insurance includes “off-premises coverage” for your personal property with set limits.

Section I - provides property coverage for the dwelling, other structures, personal property and additional living expense. Section II - provides liability insurance and medical payments to third parties. Regardless of how you choose to document these items, don’t keep the documentation in your home - that defeats the purpose should your house burn down.

Also, you may narrow down your search simply because the quotes offered seem attractive, but before actually purchasing any policy, don’t go by quotes alone.

I am an independent property adjuster with over 10 years experience. I can’t tell you the times I have been to an insured’s home only to have to be the one to tell them they don’t have coverage for this damage. Had they done what I suggest in this article they would not have found themselves in this position. View my articles and homeowners support @ http://www.easyinsuranceguides.com

Juan Casper

View our site for recommended Insurance Companies, and compare coverages for all your insurance needs =>http://www.easyinsuranceguides.com

Promotional products are a necessity for a memorable function. They can be used to build up publicity for the event, to reinforce the theme of the event, and to help your guests remember the event for years to come!

Perhaps you have a list of to do’s for your event that you have almost completed. You have been planning and organizing for weeks, months, or even all year - but if you haven’t included some promotional product in your list, you have set yourself up to miss a huge opportunity. Don’t you want your event, and more importantly, your company, to be remembered? What better way for your customers to remember your company than with a promotional product gift from an incredible event where they had a wonderful time? A creative, appropriate, and well executed promotional product is the perfect gift item for your event guests. You can even send a small promotional item with the invitation to build excitement prior to your event.

Build Anticipation

The most important factor in hosting an event is making sure that your guests come. What better way to make sure guests are excited about the event than to send them some sort of memorable and useful promotional item with the invitation? For example, the “American’s Bank” might host an open house promoting the opening of a new branch. It works out for them to set the opening for the fourth of July and they use this tie-in to add extra interest to their promotion. They plan to have a small fireworks display, free hot dogs and hamburgers, and movies and games. To build excitement about the event they choose to send out a promotional fireworks magnet with an invitation to all of their perspective customers in the area. Many of these customers use the magnet and thus, remember and attend the event.

The Long-Term Event

Some events, such as vacations rewarded to top salespeople or other work-related, long-term goals require stamina in planning, organizing, and staying excited about the outcome. One fabulous way to keep employees motivated about long-term rewards is through promotional items surrounding the theme of your companies reward. What would help employees stay on task more than a tropical stress ball, reminding them of the goal and reducing the current stress simultaneously? If your company is planning a long-term reward for top employees, it should have a theme. If your top 10 salespeople are going to win a trip to the Bahamas, title your contest, something like “Sprint to the Tropics” . Make a presentation of announcing the contest, or make a formal announcement and put one in every employee’s box. All of these strategies build up the excitement of the contest and create a sense of anticipation for employees that, if continued by the company, will continue to motivate employees year-round.

Other promotional products that will continue the suspense throughout the year are: desktop accessories, calendars, computer products - all featuring the tropical theme. Posters and signs can also help keep the goal in sight.

Benefit Functions

It is easy for the whole community to get excited about an event being held for a local, good cause. Hosting a fundraiser for a good cause will not make your company money directly, but the positive publicity will bring many customers who now associate your company with the urge in themselves to do what is right.

If you plan to hose and event of this proportion, it is crucial to choose a well organized team of employees who want to put the event together. Their interest will keep them excited about the event and will help the event itself run smoothly. It can also be advantageous to work with the community organizations who also support and or do community volunteer work, as they have much experience hosting these types of events and are also well networked with the many similar organizations and people who would be interested in attending the event. Some such organizations might be the schools, fire department, police department, local government, and local volunteer organizations.

There are also many other companies that would like to take the opportunity of advertising at your nonprofit event, and could do so through donating their products or services to the function. This allows them to post a banner or some other form of publicity at your event and gives your event more support and puts it on a grander scale.

Author: Rick Sheldon has 18 years experience in the Promotional Products Industry and is currently CEO of Save on Promotional Products Inc. a Discount Online Promotional Products Company He can be contacted at 1-800-826-8706; email: rick@justpay10.com or go to our site: Promotional Products

Do you own a digital camera? Have you started to make the most out of it? Without really starting the features of a digital camera, one can start using his or her digital camera to take beautiful pictures because of the technology embedded into that small little device.

A digital camera can help movies like me to autofocus I do on a mountain view, or a small little beautiful flower. When I first bought my camera, the salesman was very persuasive. And I quote, all you need to do is point and click. I was instantly sold on getting that wonderful camera.

As the days and weeks go by, I began to be familiar with the digital camera and suddenly digital photography became a passion for me. I wanted to take more than just ordinary pictures! I dug through my old closet and found the manual to this digital camera and started reading it. I learned about quality, that a 300 dpi will produce a better quality than a 72 dpi resolution. If only I have learned this much earlier! I learned about shutter speeds and exposure, white balance and how to remove red eye effects… digital photography is becoming very interesting!

Do you have problem taking pictures through a window? every time I take a picture to a window, there is always a reflection on the picture. Sometimes the reflection is so small I can only is it after I transfer it onto my computer. If only I knew to stand closer to the window, I would have reduced the reflection that reflects on shiny surface of the glass.

Have you tried to take pictures in the dark? if you try to use the flash with the camera, the picture could look too bright. Especially if you use it in a jungle, you will scare away most of the animals. There is a way to use the camera to take pictures without flash in the dark. That is to increase your light exposure. You can control your shutter speed by decreasing it. By decreasing the shutter speed, you allow more light to go your camera and brighten up the dark picture.

In addition to the light present, the amount of light that is reflected from the image is then absorbed into the shutter. The longer the shutter close its lead, the high exposure and brighter the image.Have you wonder how cats can see very well in the night? Their eyes are so sensitive to light, a candle in the dark can lid up a whole room for them. It takes some practice for you and I to learn about the shutter speed. Experiment and testing is crucial to know what is the correct speed.

As digital camera is getting cheaper and cheaper these days, digital photography is being picked up by many amateur Digital photographers. The younger generation to be able to pick up on softwares in many leading pictures past digital photography is a growing hobby.

If you are new to digital photography, here are some free Digital Photography tips!

Are you a beginner or seasoned professionals in digital photography? There is always something new to learn isn’t there? Visit digital photography for free and check out the abundance of resources available.

Alcohol and drug abuse can have serious tolls on the physiological and psychological health. Not only for the addict buy for family and friends as well. The situation becomes something beyond control, especially when things get abusive for everyone. The addict can’t break free from the addiction for the obvious reasons.

When this happens you will need to get help, you probably can’t do this on your own. Unless your Superman or Wonder Woman.

Drugs and alcohol are directly related to domestic violence. Addicts often find themselves without their drug. When this happens they can get very irritable, and many times abusive. They also become abusive when using their drug of choice. Most likely if you’re reading this, someone you care about is addicted to something. Have you ever tried to come in between an addict and their drugs? Not a pretty sight. They will argue with you, tell you they hate you, and of course abuse is also a major factor.

Why do they need help?

These reasons alone are enough to get this person some help, and not to mention you. This will continue until someone takes initiative, and you know an addict won’t do this. A lot of times it seems that this person does not care about you, and that they would choose their addiction over you. They will but that is just the drugs talking. You have to jump over or push through the obstacles to handle this situation, it will take some time but it is worth it. Don’t you think?

Sean has been a writer for 10+ years and is knowledgeable in many different areas.
Sean Winter is also webmaster of http://www.findaddictiontreatment.com

Here’ a really simple way to generate traffic to your website.

For anyone starting an online business the number one problem they are faced with is how to generate traffic to their website. I will share with you five basic ways to generate traffic to your site.

1. Pay Per Click (PPC) - This is the fastest way to generate traffic to your website. However, it can also be the most expensive and is not recommended for the beginner. It takes a great deal of skill and knowledge about PPC to be successful.

How does it work? The example that I will use is for Google Adwords. Let’s say you go to google and do a basic search on dogs. The ads to the right are sponsored ads. In others words paid advertising. Google charges you X amount of cents or dollars each time someone clicks on your ad. The amount you pay is based on the popularity of the keywords chosen. The more popular the keyword, keywords, or phrases the more PPC cost. The higher your ad position the higher the PPC cost. So keyword selection is critical. You have to be able to choose the most efficient keywords, and at the same time your ad has to be persuasive enough to cause prospects to click your ad. There are software tools that
can help, but again do your research. It does take a great deal of skill. It can be done, but not recommended for the beginner.

2. Articles - This is another free way of generating traffic to your website and can help search engine rankings.

How does it work? Basically you write about something you know or love talking about. It can be anywhere from 300 words to 2500 words depending on where you submit your article. I recommend that you place your articles on well know ezine magazines such as ezinearticles.com and a few others. Make sure you follow their terms of service (TOS), or your articles will not be placed. What’s important is that you are allowed in your bio to place up to three URLs. These URLs can be your websites. Now this is what you must understand. Others may want to use your articles as content for there websites. However, to do so they must leave your bio in place. This means that your article over a period of
time could be on thousands of websites across the world. Thus, potential traffic to your website which you should be able to monetize.

3. Blogging - This is a content management system that allows you to create a website (Blog). The content placed in the blog is in chronological order.

The good thing is that there are free blog providers such as blogger, typepad and many others. Once created you can submit your blog to directories. If your content is good and kept up to date it can generate traffic from links that you place on your blog that point back to your websites for monetizing. This can also help your ranking with the search engines.

4. Forums - There are many forums that are related to your particular niche. This can be a great way to learn and create traffic to your site.

How can it create traffic? Forums will allow you to have a signature after your posting. Under your signature you can place links that point to your websites. Depending on how many forums you participate in on a regular basis this can clearly add up to traffic.

5. Bookmarking - There are bookmarking communities that will allow you access to your bookmarks from any computer in the world.

The bookmarks that you create are maintained in these online communities. They can be kept private or you can share them with others. Some bookmarks that you share you may want to point to your websites to create more traffic.

In summary, I have provided you with five ways to generate traffic to your website. They were PPC, articles, blogging, forums, and social bookmarking. You must consistently use all of them to start generating traffic.

I didn’t mention search engine submission because it is the most obvious, but make sure your website is optimized.

Antonio Johnson is a well informed online marketer and is versed in many subject areas.
You can find a review of some online businesses at http://tony.thebestbizreview.com and http://realopportunity4success.com to jumpstart your online success.

“Sometimes you just get a headache” is a phrase that will stick with me for the rest of my life. These words were spoken from a very knowledgeable business leader in the Calgary market. When I sat down with my mentor about life in general, a question was raised about knowing when the time was right to exit out of a business. The answer was, “sometimes you just get a headache.”

Employees have an easier time leaving one place to go to another. It is a relatively simple process for them; however business owners do not share in this luxury. Business owners need to carefully plan their departure when the time is right, however, how do you know when the time is right?

Some leaders in the business world today recommend a five year plan and use this guideline to effectively plan your business, personal and all other aspects of your life. Many times I have seen business affect personal, personal affect business and many other issues overlapping each other. Having a plan that allows you to understand what you want to be or where you see yourself is important to your overall success in knowing when to leave. You have to plan for your succession. Have intervals when you expect certain parts to be handed off to whomever or whatever is in your plan.

Business owners need to have the fire in the belly when it comes to what they do. Without it, you are just going through the motions. Passion is what drives small business entrepreneurs to come in early, work late and spend the time on the extra mile. The extra mile is the road less travelled and it is littered with corpses of those who lost their passion and fizzled out. Travelling the extra mile is critical to success, however, so is knowing what exit to take.

So what do you do when you are ready? When the passion runs out and you are ready to take that exit off the extra mile or even to another stretch of highway, you need to plan what you are going to do. Are you going to sell out to partners? Sell out to someone else? Or just fold it up and walk away?

If you are going to sell off to your partners or a third party you need to start months or even years ahead of time building up the value of the business. You need to ensure that this little gift is wrapped perfectly for you to give away. Do you have agreements in place to show value to a third party that is looking at determining the value? Do you have your books in order? Do you have relationship agreements in place with vendors or distributors? Are you willing to stay on for a period of time to aid in the transition from one owner to another? These are important questions to you need to ask yourself well before you advertise to the world that you are moving onto something new or to nothing at all.

If you are thinking about leaving the business and you have partners you want to sell off to, when should you start hiring the right people that will allow you to start moving towards your plan date of departure? This needs to happen as soon as you decide that you want to walk away. Planning ahead will give you time to ensure the right people come on board to allow your departure to happen as you planned. Also having a new team assembled will free you up to concentrate on creating the value so that you maximize your investment return. It may also re-introduce a new found passion inside the business that was hidden because of the mess of other items that were leading to your frustration. You may be on a new extra mile without physically exiting.

When you start to have a headache forming, take the necessary steps to prevent it from becoming a migraine. Headaches are easy to cure while migraines can do some real damage. Know where you are going and the path to get you there. Then, when the passion fizzles, wrap it up in a nice bow and hand it off to someone. Move onto something that will truly energize you.

Stuart Crawford is a business leader in the Calgary, Alberta small business computer consulting marketplace. He assists small business IT consulting firms with business leadership and best practices.

He can be contacted at stuartc@youfactor.ca or by visiting their website at http://www.youfactor.ca

Stuart also manages the Canadian Small Business Show at http://www.canadiansmallbusinessshow.com

One day, James, a friend of mine here in Cotahuasi, Peru, approached me and asked a favor. He said he was putting on a large mountain bike tour the beginning of May. He had asked for my help in checking out a potential route across the high plain to Charcana, as I was familiar with part of the route. I had done a 16 hour hike across that area with Max, another friend who is a government official working on many projects here. That time he was researching an area on the high plain to use for a vicuña preserve. Vicuña are an endangered wild animal, related to the llama, whose wool is VERY valuable, and hence poaching is a big problem.

Back to the bike trip, at 3:15 Saturday morning, a horn honked outside my house and I joined Julio and Daniel in a truck for the three hour ride up to our starting place at 14,000 feet elevation. On the way we stopped three times, each time picking up a horse and numerous people who were going that was as well. Fortunately we got to ride in the cab instead of in the back of truck in the cold with the horses. There is no public transportation that goes up to the high plain in spite of the fact that many people live up there. The villages are small and far apart so it would probably not be economically feasible for combi (minivan bus) service. After what seemed like ages, we were finally dropped off in the middle of nowhere at a sign for the school in "Laxa" with an arrow pointing to the left, there was nothing in sight except a small trail.

It was light by the time we started to ride at 6:15, following the very rocky trail Max and I had hiked previously. Of course, riding a bike is much different than hiking. The trail dropped down into a deep gully and climbed steeply back up the other side. It was too steep to ride so we had to push our bikes. Julio soon had a flat tire from the thorns on the trail. We passed by the one room school that was near a few houses, but otherwise out in the middle of a large empty plain. We were on the trail to Lacsa but reached a point where I was pretty sure that we needed to head in a different direction to go to Charcana, as we had hiked to Andamarca on the previous trip. Fortunately, we saw a woman walking off in the distance so were able to get general directions from her. She had pointed off to the right of the trail we were on and we could see the trail climbing up a ridge on the other side of the plain. Thinking that cutting cross-country would be as good as the poor trail we were on, we headed in that direction.

That wasn’t a great decision but we had almost arrived at the trail when the strap on my daypack broke. Here we are at about 14,000 feet with no needle and thread, how do we fix a broken strap? The brake cable on my bike was longer than needed but I had not cut off the extra length, I just left it sticking out the end. We broke a few strands off of that and Julio used the wire to sew the strap back on the pack! Crisis averted and we were on our way again.

Now we were finally on the main trail to Charcana, which was an old Inca trail. We went through the ruins of the old village of Lacsa, bypassing the current village. We followed the trail across the high plain for miles, going down into and climbing out of numerous deep gullies on the way. At one point there were a few stone towers, about six feet high, near the trail. Of course we had to stop and take pictures with our bikes on top of one of the towers.

In typical local fashion, my fellow bikers had a bag of bread rolls and about a quart of water between them, and I’m sure were laughing at my full pack. However at lunchtime, after sharing my water, trail mix, cheese, an apple and cookies with them, they probably were glad I had brought more than they did.

We were on a trail that was new to me, and I was the guide; all we knew was that we were going in the right direction for Charcana. We passed a few houses and buildings, all made out of stones as that was the only building material up on the plain. Also lots of llamas and sheep, which somehow survive eating the very rough and sharp grass that grows up there. We couldn’t actually see Charcana because it was down in a canyon somewhere ahead of us. After many false sightings of what I hoped was the correct canyon, we finally reached the far rim of the high plateau and I could see Charcana on the other side of the canyon. It seemed so close that we weren’t worried about the time and spent too long taking pictures on top of a couple of large boulders that were on the edge of the rim.

Finally realizing that is was getting late; we started down the trail that led down the canyon towards Charcana. However the trail soon turned off and headed up that canyon instead of continuing down to the bottom in the direction of Charcana. It also became a very poor trail, overgrown and in bad condition, nothing like the main trail that we had been on. After awhile we decided that we must be on the wrong trail. But there had been no obvious junction and by that time we decided it was better to continue than to go back and try to find the correct trail, especially as we had no idea where to look for it. We could see a trail heading towards Charcana on the other side of the canyon, so we agreed to continue going up the canyon to intercept that trail as the river looked too deep to cross if we were to go straight down to it.

After over an hour the trail arrived at the river and there was a suitable place to cross it, for which we were very thankful. We were even more thankful to discover that the trail we had seen on the other side was a beautiful trail for biking, with gentle ups and downs and lots of fun curves. We had a great ride but we were hungry, thirsty and very tired when we finally arrived in Charcana at about 4:15 in the afternoon. We were the local heroes when they heard we had ridden our bikes across the high plain but then confirmed that we were "loco" when we said we were going to continue on to Cotahuasi instead of staying there. The locals tried to convince us to spend the night there but we all had plans for things to do in the morning and said that we needed to get back to Cotahuasi that evening. There is a phone in Charcana so we called Max in Cotahuasi to see if he could come in his pickup and meet us part way and give us a ride back. We weren’t able to talk to him directly but did leave a message for him. We bought a large bottle of soda and some cookies and after a short rest headed down the trail towards Andamarca and Cotahuasi.

This was a trail I was familiar with and it was a fairly good trail so we were able to make good time for a couple of hours, until it started to get dark. I have a good set of bike lights but before we left in the morning I realized that the batteries were not charged so hadn’t brought them with me. All I had was my small LED headlamp, and the batteries in that were not fully charged, and I didn’t have any spare batteries. Daniel had a small bike light but his batteries weren’t fresh either. By the time it got dark, we had reached a new dirt road. It had just been built and wasn’t firmly packed yet so wasn’t the greatest for biking. So here we were, three bikers with two lights going as fast as we dared down a very winding mountain road, trying to get as far as possible before our lights went out.

We had been riding at night for about two hours with our dimming lights, and had passed through Andamarca to a better and safer road, when we saw some lights coming towards us. We soon realized that it was the Cotahuasi police but figured that they must be going to some emergency, as they had their light flashing. By this time our lights were worthless so we were walking, pushing our bikes. We met the police at 8:15, 14 hours after we started riding, and found out that Max had sent them to rescue us because he didn’t have any gas for his truck. We gladly put our bikes in the back of their pickup and rode back to Cotahuasi with them, saving us a couple more hours of "hike a bike" in the dark.

Vic Hanson is the founder of Adventure Cotahuasi Tours, which offers pre-planned and custom adventure travel tours in Cotahuasi Canyon and other areas of Peru.

http://www.adventurecotahuasi.com