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Published: April 7th 2008
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The path into the canyon
Now you know why we thought we were so stupid! Obviously 3 days is long enough to forget the pain of doing the Inca Trail, as on arrival in Arequipa we quickly booked ourselves onto another trek! Man, were we kicking ourselves (or would have been if we had the energy) - but it was absolutely beautiful and we guess no pain no gain!
We arrived in Arequipa on the overnight bus from Cusco and were lucky enough to be able to get straight into a room and sleep (still not much good at sleeping on buses). When we finally woke up we asked about heading out to Colca Canyon (the second deepest canyon in the world - the deepest being just around the corner from it!) to see the condors - next thing you know we had booked a three day tour of the canyon leaving the following morning at 5:30am. So we spent the day wandering around, bought a few souvenirs, watched the action in the central square from a restaurant balcony and then had an early night.
On our first day of the tour we had about 6 hours on local buses before arriving in Cabanaconde. Luckily lunch was first up! Then we walked to the
canyon rim - about 40 minutes. On arrival there we realised how stupid we had been - we had to walk about 1000m pretty much straight down to the bottom of the canyon. Going down doesn´t take too much oxygen wise, but it was hell on the knees. Sad to say though that the smoker in our tour group was fastest after our guide!
We finally got to the bottom then went slightly up the other side (which made us wish for downhill again) and we found our accommodation - just before a massive thunder and lightning storm struck! We had a nice room with bathroom (but no water until we asked them to connect it. Even then it was cold! But what can you expect when there was no electricity hey, and in the bottom of a canyon). The only problem was when the rain started coming through the roof and soaking the bed! A bit of furniture adjusting and we managed to have a wet floor instead. But one bonus was getting room service.
The next morning we walked along the canyon through a few of the villages located in it. Many people are leaving the
villages as they can make a better living in the city, so there are many ruined houses around and it is very quiet. After a few hours walking we arrived at "Paradise" a lodge at the bottom of the canyon. Here we swam in the pool, rested and had lunch before having to tackle the 1000m back up to the rim of the canyon. If we thought down was hard... But we made it back to the top in a few hours, devoured our dinner and slept like logs.
The final day we hopped on another local bus and after an hour stopped at the Condor Lookout. It was absolutely awesome - we spotted one as soon as we got off the bus! They are incredibly large, but still very majestic. The hour spent watching them passed very quickly. Then it was back on the next local bus to Chivay where we had lunch and looked around before the final return to Arequipa. All in all a fantastic trip.
Next day we took a bus to Puno. It left about an hour late and took about an hour longer to get there than it was supposed to because
The Uros Islanders
It only cost 15c for this photo! the driver was overly fond of stopping for every person on the side of the road. But the scenery was beautiful and kept us amused, and before we knew it we were in crazy Puno, the main Peruvian town on Lake Titicaca - the highest lake in the world at about 3800m above sea level. We finally got to see it the next day when we headed out to the floating islands - where the Uros people live. The islands are made of tortura reeds, and when they start to rot the people just cut more and put them down. It made for very spongy walking around. Although hugely touristy it was still very interesting.
Next day we caught the bus to Bolivia - our last new country for our round the world trip! We headed to Copacabana. We saw the famous cathedral housing the famous Virgen de la Candelabra, and wandered around town a bit. The following day we caught the boat to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) to see the legendary birthplace of the first Inca. About 3000 people live on the island now and it was really interesting to see the sacred places -
the rock where they still sacrifice llamas during the October potato festival, the rock from which the Inca God arose, and an old temple built by the Incas. Although Peru and Bolivia are heavily Catholic, it is interesting to see how the old ways are still upheld and followed.
The next day it was an early bus to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia!
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