Condors

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We woke up at 6 am to begin he 2 hour drive west towards the view point of the condor. Colca canyon is by definition the the words second deepest canyon at 3400 meters or so (the first is the Colthuasi Canyon(sp?) 75 km to north which beats it by 40 meters or so).

Colca canyon was formed by a combination of river erosion and the massive fault line created by two volcanoes on either side of the canyon.
Though Colca Canyon is impressive in its own, I felt the grand canyon is more photogenic.

We arrived at the flight of the condor viewing point, we were not disappointed, at approximately 8:30 we saw the first of the condors ride the thermals created by the sun striking the western canyon cliffs. These birds are huge, some with 2 meter wingspans, the spans are deceiving as they fold up rather nicely when perched. We spotted about 30 or so Condors during the 2 hour viewing. These birds put on a rather impressive show, gliding directly over the tourists heads, its almost as if they knew what they were doing....
I personally suspect they get fed chicken bits by the Peruvian tourism board after all the tourists leave as incentive to continue the routine every day.

There ends the best part of our day, though I was not looking forward to the long drive home, I only knew the half of it.

On returning to Chivay I heard rumors from the locals that the Huelga (strike) in Arequipa had worsened as a protester had supposedly been killed in a clash with police.

Chivay is located equidistantly from both Arequipa and Puno (our next destination). Alessandra and I had brought all our bags with us, keeping the option to go directly to Puno form Chivay.

On speaking with locals, it seemed the only transport to Puno was facilitated by some guy named Pedro and his van, which leaves at 8:30 AM daily. A little early for us at 2 in the afternoon.
The tour bus completed some repairs to tires and brakes and was ready to proceed back to Arequipa. Seeing as our options to Puno were rather unreliable, we decided to return to Arequipa with the group and arrange reliable transport from there to Puno I spoke to the tour guide once more to discuss the strike, and she assured me that there would be no problem getting back to Arequipa........ famous last words....

We were traveling on the main road to Arequipa 20 km out of the city when we begin to see rocks on the road, the bus weaves around the obstacles....we pass more rocks... then we see an army personnel transport vehicle...uh oh... then traffic stops.

No problem getting back to Arequipa my a$%!

The road is blocked by large boulders, the army is standing at the side of the road making sure that the protesters don't harm the pedestrians.... who are the pedestrians crazy enough to be walking around the middle of the desert at night? US!

Against all my better judgment the tour guide forces us off the bus with all our belongings and has us walk through the protest line!!!

Ok so here I was with a 40 KG pack back, Alessandra with another 20kg huddled in the middle of a group of tourists gingerly walking over rocks strewn by shadowy figures running around on the cliffs over head...yeah this is good....

We trek about 10 kilometers through gearing crowds, protesters, boulders and tire fires. We finally make it to a gas station were we wait for alternate transport from the tour company.... at this point I could have killed our tour leader, but the pain of the fresh blisters on my feet distracted me enough from strangling her.

We finally get back to our hostel and crash. 1000 mg of pain killer and I was ok, Alessandra unfortunately did not react well to the lunch earlier in the day and had difficulty sleeping.

Peru is still a fantastic country to visit. Just be smarter than our Colca Canyon tour guide.

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Photos

Is this Gringo enough?
This hawk was magnificent, its talons dug into my skin a fair ways.