Condors of the Colca Canyon

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High up on a mountain top
Rach woke up feeling dreadful, with a high fever, sore throat and stuffy nose. We headed off on our overnight trip to the Colca Canyon. Our first stop was at a little restaurant and market where we tried coca tea for the first time. The leaves of the coca plant (which are also used to make coke - the legal and illegal kind) are steeped in hot water and are said to relieve altitude sickness and give you energy. Surprisingly it was Jase who really liked the brew, rather than Rach, the usual tea belly. We bought some cute woollies off a little lady and then continued our journey high up into the Andes. We stopped at the highest point, 5000m on top of our mountain, where frozen snow flakes fell and little ladies huddled up in the cold to sell their wares. With the onset of a bad cold, the freezing temperatures and thin air, it wasn´t great for Rach! But soon we were bumping down an endless rough road to our lovely hotel for the evening. We checked in and as we walked into our room, a crazy alpaca dashed past our window, making us jump. We went to investigate and met Munchies, the naughty pet alpaca. At first he seemed really friendly so we got close for a few pics, and then he jumped up Rach, not sure whether it was a friendly or hostile greeting! We had a delicious buffet lunch and Rach was sufficiently offended by Munchies to try a yummy alpaca steak off the barbie.

In the afternoon we were supposed to go for a 2 hour trek in the mountains. Rach had a genuine reason to opt out of the walk, but then Jase, Ricardo and Margarita all decided to wimp out too. So we stayed in the warm hotel and played Scrabble, listening to bizzare Peruvian music, one song in particular sounded like the guy was singing "Asshole!" much to our amusement.

Hot Springs
In the evening we visited some nearby hot springs. It was lovely sitting in the steaming hot water on a such a cold night, Pisco Sour in hand, listening to the Peruvian pan pipe band (it sounds much better in its native country). We decided to have a piggy-back race across the pool (very mature) but Ricardo´s a bit vertically challenged and almost drowned with Margarita on his shoulders! We went back to the hotel and enjoyed a nice evening meal and a warming coca drink that was deliciously similar to mulled wine. Good for the flu!

Condors
The next day we travelled in the bus to the Colca Canyon, which was still a fair distance from the hotel. We arrived really early at the canyon and perched ourselves on the edge of a wall waiting for the birdies to arrive, watching cute lizards scurrying around the rocks below us. We were hanging around for a while when we met the Polish girls again. They had been trekking since 3am the crazy pair to get to the canyon. When we almost gave up hope of seeing them, a huge black condor swooped past, evading all our cameras! Impressed, we hung around for a closer look at the majestic creatures, and spotted about three more birds hovering on the distant thermals. Sorry we didn´t manage to get any decent pics on the camera, but Jase managed to film them on the video camera as its got a better zoom.

After the condors, we left the canyon and stopped off in a village for a buffet lunch. We wandered around the village square, intrigued by a ladies meeting taking place outside. There were lots of ladies dressed in the most beautiful traditional outfits, meeting together to discuss various issues that were beyond our Spanish comprehension. There were lots of cute alpacas and baby lambs too! We made a second stop on the return to Arequipa, where a group of children were dancing outside a church.

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Comments

[Debra]

You ate alpaca? (squeak)
After ahhing a little alpaca how could you eat a steak? Munchies must have been savage. I like the multi-paca picture and you do look like world travellers waiting for the condors. Nice shades.

[Jones]

Munchies savages rachel
I want to see that video. Darn. Gotta go to work now. Bye luvvies.