Southern Peru, last major stop

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October 7th 2008

Published: October 9th 2008

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Winter Trek

"Chapi Hostel"

This is a photo for our good friend, Jay Chaplin. Had to take this photo...

Hola, Buenas Dias mis amigos y amigas....Well this is my last blog for a while. We are heading to the states for 5 weeks of visiting friends and family, returning to Ecuador, and hopefully heading mid-December to the Galapagos for a couple weeks, then on to Isla Coco, which is off the coast of Costa Rica. Then on to Costa Rica, then down to Panama. Robin is working on boat projects, and I'm mentally getting myself ready for the next stage of this adventure...reading guide books, and getting our maps organized.

After we left Puno and the Lake Titicaca area, we got a NICE first class bus and headed to the Arequipa region. I had read about Colca Canyon as being the deepest canyon in the world. Well, after seeing the Grand Canyon in the states, I was very interested in visiting this place. We would also be going to see the Andean Condors.

The trip was rather uneventful. These first class busses are pretty much direct...get on and get off at your destination. Which is fine with us. We had way too many second class busses in the northern part of Peru. We were definitely ready for direct,

Clothes as Art?

Should be in Ripley's believe it or not? We went to an art museum, and it was a showing from some German artist on display...too weird.

first class, smooth roads with dividers by now.

We had heard that Arequipa was a pretty nice city, so we were looking forward to it. We took a taxi to our hostel, which was a little on the rough side, but cheap and included breakfast, so we stayed there. It had over 100 cable channels with English...can't beat that. We definitely got in our TV viewing time, my more than Robin at times. The town was nice, quaint, had lots of good resturants and tons, again, of artesean artwork. We overdoesed on art work during our visit to Peru. We checked out the town for a day or so, then got onto a 2 day tour of Colca Canyon. It was a pretty good deal. We left in the morning on a bus with others and an English speaking guide. We headed to a small town called Chivay. We would spend the night in Chivay, and the next day head to Colca Canyon and the outlook for the Condors who lived in that area. They also offered trekking expeditions, and camping trips, but by this time we were reallyt tired of all the traveling, and just went the simple

Church and main plaza

Plaza de Armas, Arequipa, Peru

route...see it and leave, so to speak. It took a few hours just to get there, so a one day trip wasn't feasible.

Then the ride to Chivay was through enormous alto-plano plains, that just seemed to go on and on. The mountain ranges, with snow, would be the backdrop to this vista. We came across lots and lots of llamas, alpacas and the wild vicuna. We have seen many llamas and alpacas by now, but not the elusive vicuna (there is a tilday over the "n" in the word vicuna). These animals are left to roam and eat the alto-plano grass. Once a year the government will have a round-up of the vicuna and sheer them. This hair is sold overseas and processed into cashmir and angora clothes...very expensive stuff. If the vicuna's hair is too short, they won't sheer it as it will die from the cold during their winter. The people who live in this area and raise their alpaca and llamas only get 5% of the profit from the vicuna hair. The government keeps the rest. The life out there for these people is pretty rough, they sheer their animals and knit, weave or crochet

Evangilism alive and well

Plaza de Armas, Arequipa, Peru...saw him a few times out there...did have an audience too.

clothes and hats, etc., to pay for their food and needs. High altitude, cold and very, very dry climate.. no trees, just this dry, dry shrub grass that these animals live on. The bus would stop and we'd all get out for the photo shoot. Interestingly enough, there is some cross breeding going on also, which you will see in one photos between a male llama and a female vincuna. It was truely neat to be able to stand so close to these animals. Took. probably, too many photos of these animals, but heh, don't expect to be here again...at least that was my justification. Love those digital cameras..take lots of photos, then go back and edit out all the crappy ones. Neat technology.

Then following the road we reached another "high" point where the tourists could get out for photo ops, and a bathroom break. Again there were women there with lots of their Peruvian arts layed our along the road. Again, there is sooo much art/crafts here, I feel sorry for some of them as many times no one would buy anything when we would stop. I hope they sold SOME of their work some time during

Me and my alpaca friends

One of the stops for those lovely photo shoots

the day. We had already bought lots of stuff and weren't in the market for more, like I said earlier, it was pretty overwhelming...and these are words from a woman who loves to buy this stuff....

Anyhow, at this high point there were tons and tons (figuratively written) of little mounds of rocks all over the place. The idea being that people who would travel this road make a good luck offering to their god, pachamama. Safe travels or something like that. Behind in the distance you can see the volcanoes and mountain ranges in the area., some with snow still. I did my own "good luck" pile, what the heck, it can't hurt...They resemble those tiered piles one would see along hiking trails in the US mountains, showing the direction of a trail.

Then we arrived in Chivay. We all went to a great luncheon buffet...yummmy! Then we were dropped off at our respective hotels. The different travel agencies would make reservations for us depending on what we wanted to pay when we booked the tour. Our room was near the plaza, and it was nice, clean with hot water, so we were happy about that. It

Mix-breeding

I said to our guide..."look, a wild vicuna!" NOT, it is a mix between a llama and a vicuna.

also included breakfast..which I really began to enjoy a lot. That afternoon we were to meet at the plaza to go to some hot springs just outside of town. About half our group showed up. I didn't bring a swimsuit, so I was going to rent one....if it wasn't just RIGHT, there would be no way I would use it, I do have a little pride in myself. Robin brought his swimsuit, mine was left behind in Lima at the South American Exploreres Club, with other items we didn't want to lug around for two more weeks plus.

We get to the pools and they are actually very nice and clean. They have 3 pools for tourists and 3 pools for the Peruvians. I thought that was a great idea also. So, as Robin heads to the change rooms, I head to the little store for a bathing suit. There was a couple from our bus ahead of me. She was young and thin, me, old and "not young anymore in body". The lady in the shop starts handing out some suits to us to look over. She gives me this blue one piece that has cut-aways in the

Looks like hiking signs

People who traveled over this high point, would stack rocks for good luck.

sides....oh, nooo, not for this gal.. Then I hand it to the young gal, and say, this will fit you well...she takes it and leaves with her husband (boyfriend?). She then hands me a couple more black one pieces. They look a little small. I don't want to have that sausage look...little bulges here and there. Finally she hands me a one piece that looks huge!! Damm, I think, that will probably be too loose, but it's better than the sausage look, so I take it and head to the change room. Voila! It fits and not too bad, but now I'm totally depressed, now I know I have to do the anoxeric thing to lose weight....Of course, that will never happen as I like food too much....so I just delt with it and walked out and got in the water and had a great time...ah, those lessons some of us women have to learn...love thyself unconditionally.

Enough of that...we came back showered and headed to a resturant for dinner and a dance show. It was really great. Food was so so, but the entertainment was really good. The male dancer was very animated and smiled a lot. The

My try at ladyluck

gal was a good dancer too, but not much smiling. They probably do this dance a lot, and she is totally burnt, but it's good money, so she continues. Great fun was had by all when they started pulling tourists up to dance with them. Got good ol' Roby-doby doing "his thing". Great fun, lots of laughter by all, not just me watching Robin. He was smiling too, so I'm sure he had a good time also.

Next day we headed up to the Condor watching area. It was about an hour away. Lots of beautiful scenery, saw some ancient graves along the hillside, and lots and lots of tour busses heading in our same direction. Oh, well, they want the same as us, to see some Andean condors. Well, we weren't disappointed at all. In fact I was more disappointed in my photo shooting as at times these huge vultures were flying close overhead. When I would look at my photos, it was a beautiful blue sky..and that was it...a beautiful blue sky!
We eventually got some birds on film, but it was a let-down as the photos don't do the time there justice. You'll get the idea.

Couple photo op

Robin and I at this high-point stop off.

Maybe you could view the photos with someone and have a little competition to see who can "spot the condor first" game?

After that trip we stopped at some church for more photo ops. Robin got out and had his picture taken with a huge hawk on his arm and head. I wasn't feeling too well, so I stayed in the bus for the 20 min. stop. Back to our buffet lunch stop, yum, yum, then the 3 hours bus ride back to Arequipa.

The next day we got an overnighter bus to Lima. We left the following day in the eveing (around 7pm). We had the up front panoramic seat with the bus line Cruz del Sur. It is definitely the best bus line in Lima. Great service, food wasn't too bad, and lots of good English movies with spanish subtitles. The road to Lima was pretty barren, dry and lots of sand. Even though we were up front in the panoramic seats, not much to see.

Lima was OK. We stayed at a different hostel, and it was much better than our first experience. We met up with our friends, Jean and Bill of Mita

The dinner show in Chivay

It was really a good show, the food was just OK

Kulu, who were just starting their two week holiday in southern Peru. We went out to eat and had a good time. We spent one more day in Lima and hit the bus lines again. We were bummed that our favorite bus line, Cruz del Sur, didn't go across the border into Ecuador. We just wanted a direct bus, so we went on the #2 bus line, Ormeno. It was OK, food and service was just OK. It was another overnighter (like 16 hours). Stopping at the border was pretty crazy. There was another gringo (young guy) on our bus, and when we went through Ecuadorian immigration, we had to run across the street and get a copy of our passports for him, then he only gave us 58 days on our visa, instead of the usual 90 days. When we talked to the other gringo, he didn't have to get a photocopy and he got 65 days. We had heard that at this border crossing, the immigration officials are a little skewed, not consistant with visas. Oh, well, we were going to be heading out of the country before our visa expired anyhow (to the states), so it was't

Dancers

He was very happy to be dancing, but her look shows that she is sooo done with this dancing gig...

that critical, luckily.

Then as the bus is arriving in Guayaquil, where we want to buy our tickets to Bahia Caraquez, we notice that he isn't going into the termianl....It's a Peruvian bus line and their office was a few blocks away from the main bus terminal. We had to walk with all our stuff, and we had a lot by this time. Ugg! To say we were exhuasted was an understatement. The next day we headed back to Bahia and our boating lifestyle. When I first got on the boat, I felt a little nausea. Not used to the movement, but it passed pretty quickly, thank goodness.

So that was our trip through Ecuador and Peru. Hope you enjoyed it. It was a wonderful experience, and we will never forget certian moments. Hope to see some of you all in the states soon. Take care, Love Robin & Jean

Forgot to mention a few pictures at the end. Robin's big 63rd birthday!! Here in Bahia, a woman named McCloud was visiting for a few months. We just met her as we came back from Peru. A friend of the owners's mother. She wanted to go paraglyding

Gravesites

Mummies from long ago were found up the hill side. This was on our way to Colca Canyon from the town of Chivay.

in Canoa, and the day she wanted to go, it was Robin"s birthday, so it was just the appropriate thing to do, so we went. Robin had a great time. I took some videos, but they are just not downloading on this program at this time. Also had videos of the dancing in Chivay, with Robin too, but after 4 attempts, something not working on the video downloading software, so I will try at a later date to download them. Enjoy!

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