Gentleman, start - your - trekking!

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(Due to technical difficulties, this blog will be picture free. Sorry for the inconvenience. Pictures to be added in future)

I know, i know, i know, I'm a little late on my blog schedule, so sue me but it's not easy when you're trekkin' all over the place. Trek. A four letter word that conjures up adventure. A four letter word not for the weak of heart, not for those without a rain slicker, bug spary, an extra pair of socks...toilet paper. Fine and pleasant miseries, that's what trekking is.
I survived the Death Road in La Paz, Bolivia and boarded a bus heading for Arequipa, Peru. No scratches, cuts, or bruises, only a handful of sand fly bites from hanging out unprotected in the Bolivian jungle. They're little stealth bomber buggers who apparently like my scent and blood.
The border crossing from Bolivia into Peru was not nearly as eventful as the previous crossing although it did take quite sometime to process our bus through. Not complaining. I had a connecting bus in Puno, Peru where I go a different route to make it to Arequipa so 'timing' was of importance. However, 'timing' seemed not to be on my side as our bus pulled into Puno about 45 minutes late.....thankfully there was an hour time change, (au contraire monfrere) I was unaware of and all was good in the LB hood.
I pull into Arequipa around 7 in the evening and headed straight for the Los Andes Hostal located just off Plaza de Armas. Argentina has San Martin, Chile has O'Higgins, and Peru has their Plaza De Armas. I guess in the States we get a Martin Luther King avenue in every capital city?
So there I am and here we are together heading into another 'Deep Moment with Travelin' Laluke'. Time. Timing. Ooollllle Father Time. It's everything and nothing working for you and against you. In life it can be about a girl, a job, a crossroads and while traveling it can be a missed bus, the last bed at the hostal, or waking up just in time to catch the free breakfast. Timing. Sometimes good, sometimes bad but it is about how you play the cards you are dealt, how you take that 'bad timing' and create something good from it. One door closes and another opens. It's bittersweet yeah?, but I'll take bittersweet over sweetbitter any day and end with a good taste in my mouth.
Unfortunately, Arequipa will go down as one of the potentially coolest cities I didn't get to explore. Part of me feels like the SuperTourist traveling at the speed of semi-luxory busses and blazing along the backpackers highway, not stopping for much immersion or culture. However, I've only got so much time and places to see and people to meet. So for now, Busses, bring me your microwave dinners and gelatin desserts and I'll bring myself back again one day fluent in spanish and ready to get my hands dirty.
If you recall, my faithful blog readers, my aggressive itinerary is hurtling me north to Peru in order to meet my friends from the cruise ship Scott and Britany. Upon arriving at the hostal in Arequipa I check my email and, oh man, this is looking good. Scott and Britany are planning to be in Cusco on the 2nd and we can kick things off for a Machu Picchu trip a day or two after. I check with the guy at my hostal and a phone call later I am the last one booked into a group for a 2 day Colca Canyon trek. It's 8 o'clock and I now have to wake up at 3:30am. Sweet. Gotta be a record for the shortest time in a hostal and in a city as a tourist. I walk outside and buy a bus ticket for the evening when I return from Colca Canyon to get to Cusco, just another overnight bus to add to the list. Plans are laid and plans are made and God is not laughing at these plans, but I think God's blessing them. These are working out just a little too perfectly and so I couldn't be more grateful.
Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and a very wealthy one. It's the main commercial centre of Southern Peru and with its many fine Spanish buildings and old interesting churches (most made of sillar, a pearly white volcanic material) it was named a World Cultural Heritage site by UNESCO. Sounds great. The supermaket where I grabbed dinner, snacks and water for the trek was not made of the pearly white volcanic material and that's about all I saw of Arequipa. I headed back to the hostal, put my bag together for the trek, set the alarm and got some shut-eye.
In the wee hours (weeeeeeeeeeeee-weeeeeeeeee) of the morning I jumped in a van with other soon to be trekkers and tried to get some more shut-eye while on the 3 hour window rattling bumby drive out to Colca Canyon. In my first blog it was mentioned that when Eleanor Roosevelt saw Iguazu Falls for the first time she remarked, "poor Niagra". Well, upon viewing Colca Canyon I couldn't help but think, "poor Grand Canyon". Colca Canyon is deep, twice as deep as our canyon in Arizona, roughly about 3,191 m deep. Whoa man. The Rio Colca carves its way at the bottom of the canyon and, whereas the Grand Canyon is more dry and beautifully cracked rock the Colca Canyon is terraced in many parts with farming and small local Cabana and Collagua villages along its steep sides. I was there during the end of the dry season and soon the upcoming rains will bless the canyon with lush green vegetation and flowers.
Our first stop along the way is what most people come to the canyon for, the Cruz de Condor. The Condor is a majestic bird with an impressive wingspan that rides the upwinds from the canyon depths soaring upwards hundreds of meters without a beat of its wings. The condor is also one of the important spiritual animals in the Inca religion so they are very highly revered. We perched ourselves atop a popular ledge for both tourists and condors. Our guide gave us 45 minutes to hang out and on the dot at 9 am a single condor gently soared along the canyon, rising up to meet us with a few fly bys before perching itself on a rock not too far below the picture taking crowd. Seriously, do they plan this stuff? It was as if the condor knew he was running late but got there just in time. We were not complaining though. So we got to hang out a few minutes longer before another jaw chattering bumpy ride to our trekking trailhead.
The trek down the canyon was a dusty, loose rock and gravel one offering magnificent panoramic views of the steep landscape and the river below. We could see our path stretch out below and across from us as well as our "Oasis" at the bottom, a green patch far below. I worked my way along the path talking with each person in our group which consisted of a couple from Ireland, a couple from Germany, and singles from the UK and Canada. It was a full day of challenging dusty trail trekking with mostly steep downs and some ups as we crossed over the Rio Colca and headed for the Oasis. It literally was an Oasis. After a long day hiking at a high dry altitude it was a little mind boggling to see this lush green compound of buildings surrounded by grass and dotted with blue pools. Again, not complaining as the dip in the pool at the end the day felt g-g-r-r-r-eaat! We had some beers, had some dinner and called it a night. Well, everyone else did but I hung with the locals a little longer for another beer or four, some jokes, some stories and some card tricks.
The next morning has you making up for all that 'down' with a trail heading straight up. Fortunately for me, Cusquena, the local lager, gives me strength and not hangovers (what? Im serious 😉 ) and 5 of us stomped it up the canyon in a leg exhausting 2 hours. The big payoff came a little later in the day as we visited and soaked in a hot spring for an hour before heading back to Arequipa. There were a few other kodak moment stops we made along the way to take in the horizon stretching views with volcanoes and snow peaked mountains of southern Peru or llamma and alpaca farms encompassing the lands around us.
It was a really great trek and I was pretty worn out. Even though the canyon is deep it is also at a high altitude and the thin air quickly sucked out any powers that the local lager Cusquena provided me. It was, however, a perfect warmup for the upcoming MacchuPichu trek which I'll get to in the next blog.
So I arrived back in Arequipa with a few hours to kill before my night bus to Cusco. I received an e-mail from Scott saying that they just arrived in Cusco and what hostal they were staying at. A huge grin was on my face as it was all coming together and coming together so beautifully. After a month of travel dealing with language barriers, travel stresses, long bus rides, border crossings, some lonely times and times meeting new people a familar and pair of friendly faces was just around the corner. Ha! The timing of it all. So perfect. Nothing bitter about this, just sweet. Life and how to live it, one moment at a time trusting in God and how this 'crazy little thing called love' will work it out for the good of all concerned.
Like sands through the hourglass... so are the Days of Our Lives

ciao

lb

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