Colca Canyon

---

Hola amigos!

I have begun my travels and I am enjoying a break from Spanish classes and city-living. I spent my first weekend visiting Machu Picchu with my English friend Nadia. We took the train and bus, since hiking the Inca trail requires reservations months in advance. We managed to get our walking in as we climbed Waynapicchu--- the small mountain that overlooks the ruins. The city itself was amazing in its collectivity and por eso, my favorite part of the visit was looking down on it from the peak. Even though I have seen quite a few Inca ruins, the size of the rocks and the perfect fitting of the rocks together to form buildings, forts, walls, etc. never fails to amaze me!

After saying a difficult good-bye to my friends in Cusco, I took a night bus to Arequipa. I paid good money for a quality bus with air conditioning, though I forgot warm clothes and spent the evening shivering instead of sleeping. We stayed long enough in Arequipa to book a trip to Colca Canyon, because we weren´t keen on staying in another big city. We woke up at five to take another six hour bus ride to the canyon--- once thought to be the deepest canyon in the world. I slept for the first part of the ride, though the final three hours were on a gravel road so I enjoyed the views instead of durmiendo (much like our road on Burnside during the winter rains 😊 ).

Colca Canyon was beautiful. It felt so good to be outside moving, enjoying fresh air, speaking Spanish with my guide, and just relaxing at the end of the day when we arrived at our destination. The trek itself is quite touristy, but the other tourists were interesting and we spent our first evening in a small kitchen laughing the night away. There were four different languages going on at once, which in itself provided for a comic situation. The final day of our trek, we woke up at 4 AM to climb out of the Canyon. It was dark and the climbing was tough. I didn´t catch my breath for the entire three hours we spent subiendo and there were moments that I thought that I just wouldn´t make it, but I had just been talking with the guide about how I use my mind to make up for whatever fitness I am lacking--- so I kept reminding myself of that as I climbed up. . . and up.

Right now I am in Puno, close to Lake Titicaca. I had heard that this city is not very beautiful, but I quite like it. I look forward to heading out to some Islands tomorrow. After the lake, we are off to Chile for a few weeks. The plan is looking to be Arica, San Pedro and Salar de Uyuni, Bahia de Calderon (and smaller pueblos), and then to Santiago.

Chao, Besos, Amor

---