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Published: September 2nd 2007
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Arequipa
Santa Catalina Monastry Arequipa After our bus-fest and Nazca experience, we decided to chill out in Arequipa for a while and what a lovely city to chill out in! Good coffee, the best empanadas so far, beautiful views, and the mighty Clos in abundence!
We took a hiking trip to the Colca Canyon which is a trek down into the second deepest canyon in the world at 3191m, the first being its neighbour Cotahuasi. On the first day we walked down about 1300m into the bottom of the canyon (narrowly avoiding the donkeys on their way up) and stayed overnight at the first village (mudbrick room and an outdoor shower). On the second day we hiked along the canyon through two more villages, lunch at an "oasis" and a hike all the way up again in the afternoon heat. It was good fun with fantastic scenery if a little knackering, and we had a really good group. There are only walking paths into and out of the canyon, and so the people who live in the villages make this walk 3 or 4 times a week for supplies... they are pretty sprightly and all ages spring past you as you are huffing
Colca Canyon
From top to bottom!
and puffing up the hill! Day 3 was the themal baths at Chivay (lovely) and a stop to watch the Andean Condors in the morning.
The Condors were spectacular! There is a large family that hang out in the canyon and a series of viewing platforms to watch them soar around each morning. I am not one for wildlife watching en mass and there were so many people there I was starting to feel a bit like it was a waste of time. Then suddenly we could see about 10 in the distance and one starting coming towards us.... it was a huge fully grown adult and it just soared just metres above our heads. He was HUGE and it was quite a spinetingling sight! People are such idiots though... they were shouting and waving at it! However it remained completely unfazed and just soared back and forth checking us all out, no doubt thinking "one of these idiots might drop over the edge any minute and thats my breakfast!". They seemed to take turns to soar past us as if almost showing off and in the end everyone was quite silent just watching them glide back and forth....
awesome!
On our return to Arequipa and against my better judgement I let Richard talk me into a mountain biking trip.... all downhill on the side of Chachani Volcano. After a bumpy ride up in a 4x4, we were asigned our bikes. Richard´s front suspension didn´t work at all, and the rest of us were hunched into various super-uncomfortable positions on our wierd and wonderful machines. Then suddenly we were off..... hurtling down the track at full speed, that is, unless you are like me. I like to call myself a "cautious" rider! Richard was zooming down the mountain and kept overtaking the guide who thought he was some kind of pro and I´m sure if he had a themetune playing it would be "Ace of Spades" or something ...... me? well I was bringing up the rear a la Steptoe and Son!
Actually I found that my bad arm just wasn´t strong enough for this kind of caper and after a while I could feel every bump in the road in my aching elbow which wasn´t good and started sounding alarm bells in my head. My bike wasn´t a happy bunny either and after stopping for a
break I realised the front brake wasn´t working at all anymore! Nice! The guides tried to fix it and Richard (now our team mechanic) had to show them how to! This time the brake was constantly half on which was as good as it was going to get on this bike but we thought that was better than nothing, especially as we were going downhill rather then up and it would save me a job! However, after a while we did have to go uphill... in sand! Have you ever tried cycling uphill in sand... with your brakes half on? Flippin eck! I was puffing so hard and the guides had the cheek to say "Oh she is having problems with the altitude" (4000m)............. er no mate, its your shitty bike!!! Anyway, my arm was really starting to hurt and I was worried that I was going to do some real harm after it has really been improving so at the next break I took up the option/excuse of jumping in the 4x4 that was following us and Richard swapped onto my bike so that he could have a bit of suspension.
I had a great time watching Richard
throw himself down the mountain at top speed from the safety and comfort of the 4x4, eating biscuits, listening to Peruvian Rock, and speaking pigeon Spanish with the driver. Peruvian Rock is a much better themetune than Steptoe and Son!
Lake Titicaca (Puno) Seeing as we had a bit of time on our hands we decided to head to Puno to check out the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. We booked onto a 2 day tour of the lake and some of the Peruvian islands. The tour sounded pretty cheesy (dressing up in local clothes etc) but we thought what the heck, we are here now......
It was quite an experience in the end and actually really good fun. After being told how great our boat was because it had an engine from a bus (?) we headed out to the Islas Flotantes - floating islands made entirely of layers of reeds and supposedly still inhabited by the Uros. It was quite interesting to see how it was done, if a little dubious as to whether they lived there now or not. We got a lovely send off though as they all lined the shore of the island
and sang "twinkle twinkle little star" (??), and "Row Row Row your boat (life is but a scream)" (???).
Next stop was Isla Amantani where we stayed with local families. Our host Jousta was fantastic and looked after us so well. The ladies on the island do a LOT of knitting and make the hats to sell to tourists. They knit as they chat/walk/run around the island which is pretty impressive! After lunch (in our homes) there was an impromtu football match between tourists and locals..... so funny to watch the tourists (mostly aussies: "Cmon Shazza, shoot Mazza!") running around in their knitted hats next to the locals in their traditional dress, complete with one of the ladies in goal. We then walked to the top of the hill on the island to watch the sunset over the lake. By the way, this lake is immense! It feels like you are on the coast! The views were amazing, and it was completed by the biggest full moon I have ever seen. It was pretty serene until the "little girl mafia" turned up demanding you buy a woven bracelet from them. Man, they were vicious! We managed to get a
Little girl mafia
I bought from the sweet little one... sucker! photo in return for one purchase and somehow came away with two!?
After running away from the scary "little girl mafia" we went back to our homes for dinner with the family and then it was time to be dressed in the local finery. We were really dreading this part but in the end I became quite attached to my outfit! You get to really appreciate the work that goes into the embroidery! Rich got away with just wearing a poncho which I think he was quite taken with too! It was then off to the fiesta and lots of dancing! Jousta may have been tiny but she was like wonderwoman flinging us around the dancefloor! This was one trip that I wasn´t expecting too much from but it turned out to be a lot of fun and we got a lot out of it!
Cath
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