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Published: November 23rd 2006
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From Nazca we took a night bus (a hellacious seven hours) to Arequipa…despite paying the big bucks for a ‘nice bus’, we were all the way in the back, next to the bathroom on one of the many winding roads here in Peru. We arrived to Arequipa at 7:00am and went straight to a hostel and I fell asleep for a good 2 hours. So far, in the past four days, we clocked in 34 hours of bus time. After a nice nap, we headed out to check out the town but before we did that, the guy working at the hostel gave us a map and put a big ‘x’ through half of it indicating where not to go.
Arequipa is one of the larger cities in Peru, with over a million people. There is a lot more hustle and bustle here and more of a modern feel than that of Cuzco. On the plus side, there are no merchants walking around town peddling alpaca. We decided instead of staying in the city we would do a 2-day trek to Colca Canyon, second deepest canyon in the world, and spend the night at an Oasis at the bottom
of the canyon. Due to our timeline, this meant we had to leave this same night at 1:30am to take a night bus (six hours) to get there. We were able to work out a deal with the hostel, since we paid but didn’t really spend the night, we could leave most of our stuff there for 2 days and be able to use their showers when we returned.
The night bus to Colca Canyon was the worst we experienced, I cant really find the words to explain. Half of this mountain road wasn’t paved, and the bus had absolutely no suspension…we were literally jumping out of our seats. We were so tired and Chad’s chair would not recline….all I could was laugh and laugh. If I didn’t, I think would have started crying.
We arrived to the pueblo near the canyon where a local guide met us. We went to his home and had breakfast—a piece of bread, jam and coca tea (this seems to be the standard breakfast in Peru) and we set off for our 9-hour hike down the canyon. There were just four of us, Chad and me, our guide Salvatore and Sonya—a woman
Colca Canyon
we are on our way down
from Spain who does not like to hike!
The views here are amazing, at the canyon rim it is approx 11,000ft elevation. There are acres and acres of corn crops—black corn to make Chicha (corn beer), yellow corn to bread to sell to the big cities and to barter for other food that comes from other pueblo and white corn to eat. We headed down the canyon for about three hours, crossed the river and had to head up a bit, to where there was some flat ground. Here in the canyon there are three very isolated little pueblos. Our guide Salvadore tells us these three little pueblos just received electricity just 3 weeks ago! Salvador also tells us that the road we complained about has only been there since 1963 and before that, it was a four day walk through mountains and desert to Arequipa.
After what seemed like an eternity of walking downhill, we could see our Oasis, it was beautiful. It is green amongst the brown, and there are two turquoise pools. We couldnt wait to get there so we picked up the pace and raced downhill to get there. As it turns out, the
‘Oasis’ is much more appealing from a distance....the green was actually the weeds, the turquoise pools were slimy—but sure felt great!—and our huts had dirt floors. I suddenly realized that I would not be having a waiter bring me a cocktail out by the pool; instead, I had a warm Cuzquena beer. Unfortunately, we were so tired that we did not think to take any pictures. At dinner, two cats came around looking for food. These cats were so hungry they ate our garlic pasta! Have you ever seen a cat eat pasta???
We were so tired and had no shame; we decided that we would take the easy way up, and ride a mula. Our guide said he had a connection and could get us mule for a good price. So at 2:30am we got up and waited around on the trail in the dark for some guy to show up with three mules….and he did. My mule was Poncho—he was the leader of the pack, Chad’s mule was White Snow and she was not a happy mule. We didn’t have saddles, just thick blankets roped around the midsection of these mules, the owner told us to hop
on and hold on! Up we went, in absolute darkness, up a vertical trail. I think we were both secretly terrified; all I could think about was that this was the situation I was going to be in for the next 3 hours. It was not so bad, until the sun came up and we could actually see what we were doing, it was almost better not knowing. I hated to say good-bye to my mule, poor guy. From here, we get back on the bus from hell to Arequipa, get our stuff and take the night bus back to Cuzco. We will there one day before we go to the Amazon—woo-hoo!
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Dawn and Hans de Beer
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Aloha from the Northwest
Hi Chad and Althea...looks like you had a an adventurous journey. We admire your enthusiasm and zest for exploration. Here's wishing you more excitement and fun times to come. Uncle Hans and Aunty Dawn from Monroe, Washington