Where's Andrew

AREQUIPA & THE COLCA CANYON, PERU - NOVEMBER 4 - 9

Arequipa Main Plaza

My bus arrives in Arequipa from Cuzco at about 6:30AM which is a bad time to arrive in a new city. I decide to wait in the bus station for a while until it is a little later and a better time to try and find a room. I pull out my guide book and start to mark off some potential hostels on my map. While I'm sitting there, Shane and Seleka walk by, they decided to come to Arequipa as well and have just arrived on another bus. It's now after 7:00AM so we share a taxi with another tourist named Michael who is from Germany. Michael already has a reservations in The Point Hostel but Shane, Seleka and I get dropped off in the main plaza so we can start looking for a hostel. We go to 7 or 8 different hostels before finally settling on Home Sweet Home which is only a few blocks from the main plaza where I get a private room for about $16US per night.

Shane and Seleka plan on doing the Colca Canyon as well but they want to do it without a tour. I decide to check out what the tours offer and for just over $50US, I can get a 3 day, 2 night tour including all meals, accommodations, guide, and transportation there and back. This is likely less than I could do it on my own so I decide to book it. I will spend another day in Arequipa though because the tour leaves at 3:00AM and I did not sleep that well on the night bus so I want at least 1 night of good sleep before I go to the Colca Canyon.

I spend the rest of that day exploring the city centre of the Arequipa. Arequipa is the one of the largest cities in Peru with a population of over 1 million. The main plaza and the area around is beautiful and so clean. I see city workers everywhere cleaning the sidewalks and streets of garbage which I haven't seen anywhere else except Cuzco. After a couple of hours, I head back to the hostel to work on uploading photos and my blog.

Cruz del Condor Viewpoint

Shane and Seleka are keen to go see the new James Bond movie Skyfall, so I check online where it is playing. We catch a cab to a large mall a few blocks away and have dinner at the mall's Food Fair before seeing the movie. The movie was awesome, it's another throw back to the old Sean Connery Bond before there were tons of gadgets in the Bond series. We all really enjoyed Skyfall. We had caught the early show so we would have some time to sleep before going on the tour.

Shane and Seleka are also leaving for the Colca Canyon this next morning and they have to catch a bus at the station at 3:30AM so they are

Andes Condor

already gone before I even get up. The bus tour van comes just before 3:30AM. We stop at another couple of hostels and the van is full and we are on our way. There is about 15 people on the bus including Michael who I shared the cab with and I'm sitting next to a couple of young women from northern England named Nicola and Jenn.

It takes 3 hours to drive to the town of Chivay where we stop for breakfast. Within and hour, we are back on the road. Our next stop is in about 1.5 hours at a viewpoint called Cruz del Condor along the rim of the canyon. This is supposed to be the best spot for viewing the

Michael, Andrew, Nicola, Jenn and Andres

Andes Condor. I'm not even out of the van yet, and I can see one of these huge birds soaring past the van. Once I'm out of the van, I head to the viewpoint. I can't see any Condors but within a few minutes, one comes soaring up inside the canyon riding the thermals that radiate up. This is what makes this the ideal spot for seeing them. Within a few minutes there is 2 of them, once they have ridden the thermal up the canyon, they just start soaring higher and higher. One of the guides tells us that these are juveniles because they have not got the mostly black with some white colouring of a mature adult but they still are huge. Mature adults can get up to a 3.5m wingspan. I then see another Condor coming up the canyon and this one is a mature adult. It flies by quite close but it is a real challenge to catch a good photo of them.

I wonder up to another part of the viewpoint and stumble across Brad and Liz. This is now the 3rd time I've seen them since meeting them in Guatape Colombia. After a few minutes of speaking with them, it is time to go as my tour van is leaving. We drive for another 40 minutes or so before coming to a stop along the wall of the canyon, this is where our trek will start. It turns out that some of the people in the van are doing a 2 day, 1 night trek while others are doing a 3 day, 2 night trek. We all hike exactly the same trail, the 2 day trek people just hike a lot farther the first day. So, we a split into 2 groups accordingly and my group is the 3 day trek and there is only 5 of us plus our guide, the other group has 10 people plus their guide. In my group is Nicola, Jenn, Michael and Andres from Italy along with Armondo our guide.

After some quick introductions, we are soon on our way. We will be hiking down the canyon and crossing the river on a small bridge to get to the town of San Juan de Chuccho which is almost 1000m below the start of the hike. The first hour we traverse across the rim of the canyon until we cross a small ridge and then we follow the trail down with many switchbacks as it descends into the canyon. It gets quite warm in the canyon with temperature in the low to mid 30s Celsius but the view of the canyon and the river below are beautiful. We also see the 4 towns that are in the canyon, there is San Juan de Chuccho, Cosnirhua, Malata and Tapay. The green fields that surround each of the towns really stands out as they rest of the Colca Canyon is desert like.

We get to the bottom of the canyon in about 4 hours and cross the bridge and hike up a small embankment to get to San Juan de Chuccho. We come to a families house where we have lunch. There are a bunch of small bungalows built near the main house where we are staying the night. The girls have a bungalow to themselves, Michael and Andres share one and I get one all to myself. So far, the other group had been with us including lunch but now they are on their way as they have another 3 to 4 hours to hike before getting to their accommodations. I'm glad I chose the 3 day trek as my knee is sore again after the long descent and it's nice to do a little more leisurely trek.

After lunch, we all end up having a little siesta because none of us got much sleep with the early departure time and later, we all gather at the covered eating area and get to know each other better. There are also a bunch of cats that live here and one small one really catches our attention as it had the most interesting eyes, one is light blue while the other is a very vibrant green. I tried to get a good picture of it but it just would not cooperate. After a nice dinner, we all are in bed quite early as we are still tired from the early start and there's not much to do here at night.

The next morning we have breakfast at 7:30AM and are on our way just after 8:30AM. We walk through most of San Juan de Chuccho which is small, only a couple of hundred people live here and then we hike up along a river and up an embankment to the village of Cosnirhua. It's not a long way and takes Michael, Andres and I about 45 minutes but the girls take quite a bit longer. They tell me about some struggles they had on the Inca Trail hike, mostly with the altitude but I can tell they are already concerned about tomorrow's hike out of the canyon.

We walk through Cosnirhua which is a little larger town but still only 3 or 4 hundred people. There is a small strip of desert between Cosnirhua and the next town called Malata which is about the same size. As we leave Malata, we soon come to some road construction. A gravel road is being built to Malata for the 1st time so everything will not need to be brought in by mules or donkeys which will make things easier and cheaper for everyone in the 4 towns in the canyon but the way of life in these towns will likely change forever. Tapay is farther up this wall of the canyon and is the largest of the 4 towns but we do not go there as it is a fair bit out of our way which is just as well as it is about 10:30PM and already over 30C.

Our destination is an Oasis at the bottom of the canyon next to the river. The Oasis is a bunch of small resorts built specifically for tourists visiting the canyon and each has a pool. After we leave Malata, the trail starts to weave downhill, we need to descend 300m or so. It's now really getting hot and we are all thinking about the pool and lunch that is waiting for us at the Oasis. It takes more than 90 minutes to get to the river and we cross a small bridge. We now have a small uphill section that Jenn and Nicola don't like too much but we finally get to our resort at about 1:30PM.

It is beautiful, there is an incredible pool carved out of a huge rock. The pool is surrounded by beautiful gardens, grass and a bunch of small bungalows where we are staying. This is one of the most beautiful places I have stayed at since leaving the Caribbean. It does not take long for us to get changed and find our way into the pool, the water is colder than I was thinking it would be but it is just perfect. We hardly even want to leave the pool for lunch.

After more pool time, we all head to another resort where some people we met on the trail are staying. There is a happy hour at their bar for Mojitos

which we all think would be a nice way to end the afternoon. This resort is nice but the pool, gardens and cabanas at our place are much nicer. The Mojitos are OK but they are kind of strange without ice. By 6:30PM we need to head back for dinner, it is already dark and our way back is via a trail through thick brush. It's a good thing I brought my headlamp because no one else has a light. It's actually pretty funny to lead 4 other people along a twisting trail in the pitch black with only the one light.

Dinner's ok but nothing special and then we meet with Armondo to discuss tomorrow's schedule. He

wants us all to be ready to start hiking at 5:00AM, it is almost 1200 meters straight up tomorrow and it should take us about 2.5 to 3 hours of walking along switchbacks to get to the top. If we leave at 5:00AM, will should finish before that side of the canyon receives the morning sun. Nicola and Jenn are concerned that they will not be able to do the hike in 3 hours and will end up doing much of it in the hot sun. I can tell Armondo is concerned as well and so are Michael, Andres and myself. Jenn and Nicola ask if they can start an hour early which we all think is a good idea and Armondo will meet them at 4:00AM and us 3 guys will start hiking an hour later. I give Jenn and Nicola my headlamp as it will be dark when they start but light out when we start.

Nicola and Jenn Climbing the Canyon

The next morning, Michael, Andres and I get started at 5:00AM and are surprised to find Jenn and Nicola sitting by the pool. Armondo never showed up at 4:00AM and they have been waiting in the cold for an hour. We wait for another 10 minutes and he still does not show up. It doesn't make sense to wait any longer and Jenn and Nicola are starting to get nervous that they will have to hike in the hot sun. We don't know where Armondo is sleeping and no one else at the resort is up, so I decide we should just start and Armondo can catch up to us later.

We are not sure exactly where the trail begins but we find it right away and start up. Michael and I

decide to just stay with Jenn and Nicola as moral support. Yesterday they had seemed a bit defeated whenever a hill came along but today they have a different attitude. Maybe it was Michael and I staying with them or maybe they were just pissed off that they waited an hour in the cold and dark, but they start off at a nice steady pace and maintain it.

The canyon wall is so steep that it is hard to know how far we have come but a couple of hours into the hike, Jenn and Nicola are a little worried that the sun will finally light up our side of the canyon which seems to spur them on. We see the rim of

Armondo, Nicol, Jenn, Andrew & Michael at the Top

the canyon a few hundred meters above us when Armondo finally catches up to us. We had found out from other guides that it is his birthday today and I think he was celebrating it last night which is why he was not there this morning.

We get to the top about 3 hours and 15 minutes after we started and Andres only arrived about 40 minutes ahead of us. Jenn and Nicola really surprised me today with how fast they were hiking, we even passed a few people on the trail and I think they really surprised themselves. About 10 minutes after getting to the top, the sun finally had moved far enough west to light up the entire canyon so we got to the top just in time.

We have to hike another 20 minutes through some fields to get to the town of Cabanconde where breakfast was waiting for us. We never really got an apology or explanation from Armondo but I could tell he was really embarrassed.

After breakfast, we all pile into a van with another tour group and get started back. We stop in the town of Pinchollo at a market but none of us were interested in buying anything. There were also some locals at he market with live birds and Impacas. You could get your photo with them for a small fee. There were 2 Eagles and a Falcon and I got some nice photos with the Falcon for about $.50US. The Impaca was pretty funny though. its name was Jose and he knew his name. All the tour company drivers and guides knew Jose and would call out his name. Jose would turn quickly to see who called him and he seemed to recognize most of these guys. The tour guys would try to grab or poke Jose and he would respond by charging into them with his chest at least he would charge as far as his short leash would let him.

We then continue on to Chivay where we stop at a nice hot springs. I'm very stiff after the climb today so a nice soak is a perfect way to relax all my aching muscles. The climb was tough and unrelenting so it was nice to actually slow down the pace a bit like we did this morning. After an hour, we are back in the van and drive a few minutes to a restaurant for lunch. Lunch is not included and of course they are taking us to the most expensive buffet restaurant in town for $10US but we find a real nice restaurant full of locals and have an excellent meal including a soup for $4US.

An hour later, we are back in the van and we leave


Chivay at about 3:00PM. It is 3 hours back to Arequipa and although we drove this section of highway, it was dark and we never saw it. The highway winds up to a high plateau that continues most of the way back to the city. This high plateau is only good for grazing Alpacas and Llamas because is ranges from 4500 to over 5000m. We even see the 3rd member of this family called the Vicuna which is basically a wild Llama with colouring and a coat like a deer. Alpacas and Llamas are quite different, the Llama is much larger standing almost 2m tall and is often 2 different colours. The Alpaca is much smaller under 1.5m tall. It always is a single colour usually white or black and has a much thicker wool coat. The wool is much finer and is a much better quality wool than that of the Llama. The Impaca also looks much cuter than a Llama and has a much gentler disposition and is not known to spit like a Llama.

Vicuna

We get back to Arequipa just after 6:00PM and I head back to the Home Sweet Home hostel. I relax for a couple hours before having dinner and then go to bed early. I'm going to catch a morning bus to Puno which is about 6 hours away to the south right on Lake Titicaca near the Bolivian boarder. I plan to do a tour of the floating islands before crossing the boarder and heading to Copacabana followed by a bus to La Paz a few days later where I'll probably meet up with Itamar and Rachel along with Shane and Seleka.

More on Puno and Copacabana next time. Adios for now.