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Published: October 20th 2009
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Que tal chicos!
So while I’m sure that all of you were watching the Badger game this past Saturday, I was enduring quite a rivalry myself…..between me…..and the deepest canyon in the world, the Colca Canyon. It was quite a tough adventure (and I have lots of blisters and sore muscles to prove it), pero se vale la pena (but it was worth it).
Desiree, who is another exchange student from La Catolica, and I left Thursday afternoon from Lima on a 16 hour bus ride to Arequipa. It sounds worse than it was. These are high tech buses with GPS tracking for safety, tv’s, nice reclining chairs, bus attendants, and served meals. My only complaints were the numerous Disney cartoons and movies (Underdog, Cheetah Girls, Goofy), repeating soundtrack of horrible music, and getting told about every hour that we can only “pee pee, no poo poo” in the toilets. One bus we were on this weekend charged 20 soles (about $7) for “accidents.”
We spent Friday exploring Arequipa. We went to the Santa Catalina Monastery first, which is this huge monastery that takes up a whole block and was built in the 1500s. Back in the day,
this Monastery was said to have 200 nuns and 300 slaves living in it….these were some rich and high society nuns until the Vatican straightened things out. It even had streets inside of it. Then we went to a museum to see the famous “Juanita,” an Incan child sacrifice who was found on one of the mountains near Arequipa. Because she was buried in the snow on top of a mountain, she was totally preserved and has all of her internal organs and skin (she is not technically a mummy). I was kinda freaked out, but it was pretty interesting. The Incas believed that by sacrificing children (by getting them drunk with an Incan drink called Chicha and giving them a fatal blow to the head), they appealed to the gods and bad things wouldn’t happen to them. After that we went to the main plaza to take some pictures and check out the Cathedral, which is said to be the largest in South America.
Saturday morning we were picked up by our guide at 3:30am to head out to the Colca Canyon. Not only is it the deepest canyon in the world, but is also twice as deep
as the Grand Canyon. We stopped at the Cruz del Condor on the way to see some Condors, which are these vulture like birds with wingspans of around 10 feet. After that we started our trek down the Canyon. It was ridiculously hard and we ended up hiking for 7 hours that day. We learned that the locals actually do a marathon every year through this canyon, which we thought was completely nuts. I am grateful that our guide Omar waited until we were at the bottom of the canyon to tell us about the dumb tourist who went trekking by himself, fell off the mountain, and died.
I had originally thought that the Colca Canyon was the second deepest canyon in the world (as told in “the Book,” aka Lonely Planet), but now have changed my views on that one. Our guide told us that there are 3 rules that a canyon must follow: have vertical walls at a 90 degree angle, a river running through it, and there must not be more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) between the walls/mountains of the canyon. Technically the other canyon that is deeper than the Colca Canyon (and is also
in Arequipa) has walls that are more than 10 kilometers apart, not making it a canyon. There is a lot of debate about this, but I have decided to call the Colca Canyon the deepest canyon in the world.
We stayed overnight Saturday in this drab little hostel place in the bottom of the canyon. There was no electricity, disgusting bathrooms, and an interesting room situation, but they did have a swimming pool (which I took full advantage of). I felt like my parents (who we all know go to bed at around 7:30pm every night) when we went to bed at 8:30pm. We were exhausted and couldn’t see anything anyways.
Sunday morning we headed back up the canyon at 5:30am. Desiree and I seriously debated buying mules to take up the mountain, but decided we could do it. It took us 3 hours to climb up the mountain out of the canyon and we were pretty darn proud of ourselves for doing all of it.
We stopped at a couple little cities (one in which I had the chance to kiss an Alpaca, which was entertaining) on our way to the hot springs. They were amazing,
and felt so good on our sore muscles. After this, we headed back to Arequipa.
We have come to realize that Peru is about 20 years behind the US in a lot of things, especially their music/movie tastes. They are obsessed with Titanic, Disney cartoons, and American music from the 80s (in English, even though most of them don’t understand it). Desiree and I were so excited that they played music from the 90s on the way back to Arequipa such as Dido, Bon Jovi, Backstreet boys, Shaggy, Creed, Donna Lewis, Evanescence, and many other old school songs that we knew by heart (and sang to). We have also learned to accept that Peruvian time can mean hours later that the stated original time, but we had really wanted to make the 7:30pm bus to get back in time for classes. We got back to Arequipa at 6:55pm and literally ran to the bus station and by some miracle made the 7:30pm bus. Everything really seemed to work out in our favor this weekend.
Omar told us that we trekked about 18 miles this weekend, and I’m not sure that that sounds right, but after over 10 hours
of hiking, I’ll take it! I calculated that we were on buses for around 40 hours all weekend, but it was definitely worth it. The Colca Canyon was absolutely beautiful and I had never done a trek that difficult in my life.
I hope you are all enjoying the Autumn weather while it is starting to get warmer and warmer here in Peru (me sticking this in your face is my way of coping with being homesick).
Cuidense mucho!
Margarita
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Andrea
non-member comment
Whoa
SO intense! Congrats for making it the whole way. I totally know what you mean about the different concept of time. It's the same way here. Sometimes Mass on Sunday begins at 7:30, sometimes 8:30, you never know. Jack and I were told that it was at 8 so we arrived early, arrived late, and finally decided we should forget about our watches and just follow the bells. So far that's been working out pretty well. Miss you! Andrea