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Published: December 20th 2005
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Volcano Misti
View on the way to the Colca Canyon. If the foreground you can see two alpacas, animals similar to llamas. Nobody told me that the entire Peruvian coast is a desert. Its kilometer and kilometer of massive sand dunes. I was expecting jungles with wild monkeys and boa constrictors. It just shows how much I knew about Peru.
The trip from Guayaquil to Ica, a pueblito a bit south of Lima, took 31 hours. Thirty-one hours! It was horrible. First, at the Peruvian border, the guard said I needed to pay $15 to get an entrance stamp, which of course, isn't true. When I informed him that I wasn't a moron and that I knew it was free, he said, "Fine. Fifty cents." I gave him fifty cents because he had my passport and the bus was leaving without me. Then I started to feel ill. My head hurt and my lips began to crack from the dry air. To top it off, every single peruvian on the bus wanted to exchange email addresses with me. To this day I have no idea what that was all about.
I arrived in Ica, a small town six hours south of Lima, feeling like I had a nasty hangover. Hours of travel had put my body and mind in a state of atrophy.
Huacachina Sand Dunes
Sunset in Huachacina. If you look closely, you can see a sandboarder walking up the dune horizon. I stumbled my way over to an oasis community outside of Ica called Huacachina, a packpacker hangout. It was the perfect place for my convalesence.
I spend three days sneezing and sniffling. On the third day, however, I managed to go sandboarding and ride the sandbuggies. Sandboarding, by the way, is the perfect way to break your ankles. You have no control, constantly gain speed, and can only stop by diving head first into the firery hot sand. Furthermore, the drivers of the sand buggies are insane; they recklessly drive over the ridges of sand dunes at full speed and then drop over two hundred feet into the valley. We spent three hot hours in the desert. To this day sand remains lodged under my nails, in my hair, and in my ears.
The following day I caught a bus to Arequipa, also called the White City. It is the second largest city in Peru. I still felt like shit but I thought the rarified air of the southern mountains would finally help me expel all the goock stuck in my head. I think it worked. I woke up the next morning feeling just fine.
Arequipa is surrounded by snow-capped
Sand Buggies
On the ridge of a sand dune. We sandboarded down to the oasis below (not Huacachina). volcanos. All the builings in the historic part of town are made of white volcanic rock, hence the name White City. It gives the town a clean handsome appearance. The only thing I saw in Arequipa worth mentioning was the daily parades, protests, and demonstrations. They took place in the main plaza. One day was Students Day, the next Police Day. The third was hilarious. The army decided to demonstrate to the public their creativity? efficiency? I don't know what. They made a zipline from the roof of a building down to the square. Then, with hundreds of confused Peruvian citizens looking on, a man clipped himself onto the line, started screaming, and went flying down the zipline only to crash head first into the pavement. He was bleeding all over the place. No one knew whether to clap or help the man. The military packed up their equipment and left rather enigmatically.
On the the 3rd of December, I took a two day trip to the Colca Canyon. There were 8 other people in my group, including three australians (Joe, Alex, and Richard); the four of us were to cross paths repeatedly throughout Peru. Everyone in the group got
Cathedral in Arequipa
Sunset at the Plaza de Armas along really well. During the trip, however, they would ask me questions about American culture that I had no answers to. For example, Why are Americans so desperate to believe in crazy pseudo-religious schemes? Why is it that Americans can't speak any language other than English? Who are these Americans that vote for Bush? because I've never met one.
The drive to the Colca Canyon was as interesting as the the canyon itselt. We had to cross a pass at 16,200ft. That is a new record for me. We stopped at the pass to check out the rock forest the covered the lifeless altiplano. The Incas considered the volcanos in the area sacred. They were called apus, and rock offerings were made at the pass as a sign of respect. I made my offering to Volcano Misti (seen in the picture).
The Colca Canyon is still mostly inhabited by indigenous peoples. The worship of Pachamama, or Mother Earth, is omnipresent. Because it is an agriculture-based community, Pachamama has particular importance. In the park, for example, men pour a bit of their beer onto the ground before drinking in respect for Pachamama. The terraces created by the Incas still stand and
Rock Forest
Karins peppered the landscape at the highest pass (16,200ft). I'm paying respect to the apu Mt. Misti. are farmed collectively by the town.
Early the next morning we went to the Condor Pass. From here you can see the 9,000ft canyon dividing the earth. Its so massive its difficult for your eyes to comprehend. Pictures obviously don't do it justice. I couldn't stay longer to explore the valleys below because I had to get to Cuzco to do the Inca Trail.
Pachamama me muero tan triste
Pachamama me pongo a llorar
-Manu Chao
I finally know what that means. I always thought Pachamama was some kind of crazy mexican slang about someone's mother.
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Amber Simons
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Salud...
Feliz Navidad y Prospero Nuevo Ano... Cuidate amigo, Amber