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Published: February 14th 2007
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Cathedral of Arequipa
The view of the Arequipa Cathedral from our restaurant terrace Good day! Thanks for all the messages from back home! This blog is by the tall skinny white guy, who still hasn´t managed to get much colour after almost a month of travelling (my mother should be proud)
In this episode we explore deep canyons, go high altitude hiking, try new foods and make new friends.
***Something we forgot***...with all of the Galapagos excitement, we forgot to tell you about our unique snorkelling experience. While in deeper water looking for hammerhead sharks (unfortunately didn´t spot any), I felt a weird tingling on my mouth and over my arms and legs....after checking with the guide that nothing truly exotic was sharing the same waters with us, I kept on swimming. A few minutes later, my mask was fogging up, so I flooded it with water to clear it - at which point my eyes started to tingle....rather uncomfortable. At this point, I aborted my swim, and got a nasty sting on fingers and mouth taking off my mask. Jen continued to swim ahead with the rest of the group, but not for long. Turns out our group had swum through the leftovers of a jellyfish. Four out of six of
Get thee to a nunnery
Hanging out at the very impressive Monasterio of Santa Catalina us got stung, but nobody suffered very badly. Of the two recommended ointments for jellyfish stings, I opted for the vinegar, as I thought it would be a bit messy to pee on my face....
And now we pick up back where we left off: We left the tiny town of Nazca on our first overnight bus trip. The buses in South America are constantly late, so it wasn´t until after midnight that our 11:00 bus departed. It wasn´t that bad a trip though, and we both managed to get some sleep, to our mutual surprise (thanks mostly to the luxurious ´bus cama´seats).
We arrived in Arequipa, Peru, the country´s second biggest city, and a beautiful place. It has the best plaza that we´ve experienced, with many locals enjoying the city center at all hours.
Our hostel was just down the street from the
Monasterio de Santa Catalina. The monstary was founded in 1580, but only opened to the public in 1970, after being closed to society for a few hundred years. Touring the monastery was like stepping back in time...old stone ovens in the kitchens and very simple buildings constructed mostly of sillar, a slightly sparkly white volcanic stone
High Altitude Hiking
Hiking in the Colca Valley near the town of Chivay, on the way up to pre-incan tombs that is used for many of the town´s colonial buildings. The monastery had quite the reputation back in the day...many of the nuns were very rich, and had a few slaves or servants. Apparently this wasn´t such a big deal. What really irked the big cheeses in Spain was that they weren´t exactly known for keeping all of their vows, so in 1871 they shipped over a strict dominican nun who cleaned house.
The morning of our second day in Arequipa saw us heading out to Colca canyon on a one night, two day tour. Getting on the bus, we had a very pleasant surprise...Rosie and Steve, whom we had met briefly in Lima, and again in Nazca, were on the same tour! We really enjoyed getting to know them better, and will hopefully get to visit them in the UK when we´re there in the fall.
The mornig of the first day was spent driving to the Colca valley, over a 4900m (1600 ft) pass, the highest elevation that either of us has been to. We were happy to have acclimatized in Ecuador. We stopped for lunch in the small village of Chivay, deep in the valley.
Enjoying the View
Taking a break to enjoy the view of the Colca Valley In the afternoon, we hiked for an hour up to some pre-incan tombs (very cool) that hug the sheer cliffs at the top of the mountain. The tombs are open, having been plundered by grave robbers. Oddly, the skeletons of the dead have been left in plain view to the trail. A few of the better preserved skulls were arranged in the opening to one of the tombs. The tribes here practised the art of skull deformation, by binding the heads of newborns with rope and sticks to make very pointy. Being at elevation, the hike hit Jen pretty hard as she was in week four of her nasty cough, which was finally clearing up. The apres-hike was some fine hot springs back in town, where we soaked for a very blissful hour.
The tour had taken us through highland ranching areas, where we stopped for some photo ops of three of the four wool producing animals of the Andes. The tall and scrawny llamas, the cute and fluffy alpacas, and the rare and expensive vincunas (a vicuna wool shawl will set you back $1600 US). That night, we appreciated the fluffly little guys even more, with some tasty
Pre-Incan Tombs
A few of the better skulls are arranged at the entrance to one of the pre-incan tombs. The detail photo is of the pointy one in the left rear. alpaca steak!
The morning of the next day we drove to the ´Cruz del Condor´, a truly awe-inspriring lookout at one of the deepest points in the canyon.
Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world at 10, 725 feet. The deepest canyon (only 763 feet deeper) is just around the corner! We were there to do watch the revered Andean Condor. (My mum will be proud that we spent two days on a bus to go bird watching) They are a little shy, as we managed to see only two of them in the hour we had, before having to get back on the bus....at which point I saw two more that Jen missed because she had already boarded (she wasn´t too happy about that!) They are beautiful birds in flight, as they glide on the updrafts coming up the cliffs. All the time we were there, we couldn´t help but look up at the steep mountains and say "if there was only some snow, that would be a sweet run!"
We arrived back in Arequipa that night, with only a couple of hours before our second overnight bus of the trip. We were nice and
Ouch!
Detail of an elongated skull from the pre-inca Colca Valley tombs. stiff, having spent most of the two day tour squished into the back seats of our tour bus with very mixed roads....but not as miserable as poor Steve, who spent all of the last day looking like death warmed over (his system didn´t appreciate alpaca goulash!)
Our second overnight bus was not a highlight. This one was on the top floor of the bus, where the seats are still well above the standard of your typical Greyhound, but not nearly as nice as before. The bus was heated to tropical levels, and we didn´t get much sleep at all. In four days, we had done two overnight buses and a two-day bus trip. We arrived in Cuzco, the ancient city of the Incas, at five thirty in the morning, dead tired and needing to find a place to stay...
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