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Published: March 26th 2007
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It was great to get to the sun again!!! Arequipa was pretty arrid and hot - yey a chance to top up the tan!!
A nice laid back city with a nice atmosphere so we chilled out for a couple of days before hitting Colca Canyon for another trek!! The bus journey was the best bus journey of South America so far!!
The bus journey over to the canyon was enough in itself for me to be happy with the trip, I was mesmerised by the diversity of the landscape it was amazing - from desert to rocky dry/volcanic landscape, to moon like terrain, to misty nothing at the top of the mountain, then down the other side to green vastness and massive drop, then down to Chivay into meadowland - dairy cows and dry stone walls - beautiful!! I wanted to sleep on the bus but couldnt cos I couldnt keep my eyes closed long enough in case I missed something!!
When we got to Chivay, it was cool cos all of the locals piled on and it was full and felt like we were properly in South America, slightly off the Gringo trail - I
loved it!! The all had cool different embroidered hats to show what village they were from, all agricultural villages and all people covered from head to foot to protect from the sun...us gringos in shorts and little tops to catch some rays hee! they all seemed so happy with their livelihood strapped to their backs using blankets - the proper Andean way!! Such a simple way of life...couldnt help being slightly envious...for una momento until I was reminded of what they live in - small huts made of mud and stone...
COLCA CANYON
We hiked from a cool local town/village of Cabanaconde´down in to the canyon for about three hours...pretty tricky in parts but brilliant....was wishing I had my good old trusty friends Frank and Eddie bck to help me down (my sticks). We started at 3100m and hit the bottom at 2100m, the deespest canyon in South America (bar the one next to it which was found to be 160m deeper hee)
We stayed in a cool little mud hut with a dried grass roof, was sooo cute but was rather paranoid about bed bugs!! But ended up having the best nights sleep ever!! We were in
bed for 8...another early night...usual for us ha ha!! Great group of people too - a dutch couple, an american girl and a french guy...plus a guide that didnt talk and a girl that was training to be a guide....who couldnt even keep up with us!!! we later found out that you only have to do the trek once to become qualified to be a guide ha ha...i pity her next group or ours for that matter!!
The only casualty of the night was Sal´s brace....yep...another dental casualty...her brace broke....another trip to the dentist for us!!
We got up and hiked to the oasis - was soo cute and soo relaxing, could have stayed a while ...apart from the biting flies!! We chilled for a bit in yet another paradise!! we ate (as usual....potato soup and more carbs!!) and headed back up the canyon....it felt like hours!!
It was a pretty hard hike up out of the canyon and took three hours- hard on the legs and the breathing, it was harder than any of the sections of the Inka Trek...but still not a touch on 15 Peaks!!!!!It was probably harder cos we did it in the
heat of the day but we wanted to...and then the bloody donkeys kept getting in the way!! But you dont mess with them...or they just kick you...as the french boy found out...
Despite the trek being pretty hard, I REALLY enjoyed it and there were such great views!! Sal struggled a bit cos of her asthma but she did brilliantly considering how dry the air was....and she enjoyed it too!
We got up to the top, went to our hostel and then went to get food and our long drooled over pisco sours!!! Shame there were a lack of bars...so we bought our own pisco, sprite and limes!!! they hit the spot in pretty much the same way!! was a funny night, after food we hit the street and bought some street doughnuts and street hot pisco and hung out on the street like the locals, it was great...felt like a real taste of south america!!!
Shame the beds were soooo soft... got stuck in the beds and found it hard to get up!! Went to do teh condor viewng with the tourists....got some cool pics of cacti!! Randomly bumped in to the couple - Darren and
Estaher that we met in Iguaza, Cusco, Sacred Valley and Inka....!!
Overall a brilliant trip...I think I may have preferred it to the Inka Trek...it was sucha cool hike, quieter and it was sooo cool to see exactly where and how far you had hiked up!!
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Chelsea
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Wow!!!
Wow Shane I'm sooooo jealous wish I were there with you ;) Continued good luck on your journey and I will be looking forward to more pics and blogs. Take Care ;) Chelsea