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Published: September 9th 2006
Hi there, Lorna here again!
So...Arequipa was a cool place. Like Ali said, it was the first place that we started to experience alititude....although I think we were misguided in thinking it was the real thing....as we have sampled much more since!
Did some sight seeing around Arequipa. In the morning we went to the Santa Catalina Convent, which was a fantasic place. In short, the convent has been established for many years - going back to when it was first set up, it was actually very corrupt, all these women went and became nuns and then had hundreds of servants to wait on them hand and foot! They ate and drank from ornate gold plates and cups and basically lived the life of riley. Then the pope came along and told them they had to do it properly - many of the nuns left! Nuns still live in the convent, and it is now much stricter - they can only leave the convent for family weddings or funerals, or to see a doctor. They dont have tv or radio, but do have internet!!! The convent is beautiful, its like a small walled city within the main city - got a stack of pictures that hopefully will catch the colours and the atmosphere of the place.
We then trundeled down to the local museum to see Juanita - the 'ice maiden'. Juanita is a very well preserved mummy (internal organs and everything intact) who was discovered 6000metres up a nearby volcano in 1995. She dates back 500 years and was a (willing) human sacrifice made by the locals to appese their God. Apparently, they would have made her drink some kind of toxic substance and then cracked her over the head with a rock. She would have died and frozen instantly! Hence the fact that she was found so well preserved! She is kept in a glass freezer in the museum - kind of a weird experience to see her and hear the story! Beats the British Museum anyday!
The rest of the day we basically wandered around and did different things, saw the market, the shops etc.
Next day, think that would have been Wednesday (but struggling to keep track), we left Arequpia bright and early to cross the Andes and hit Chivay. The drive was about 8 hours in total - very arduous roads through the Andes. We had lunch on the side of the road at about 4500metres, cooked for us by Rob and Jose....cant remember what we ate but it was nice! They then have us coca tea....loopy juice.....a 2hr sing song followed on the bus!!!
Some hours later we reached the highest point on the pass at 5000 metres and stopped for 10 minutes. Now, the oxygen was really thin here!!! According to Rob (our guide), if you were to try and work at anything above this altitude, you would need oxygen - and I can believe it! Just walking a few steps had you out of breath. Ali and I decided to brave the little brick igloo construction of a WC which is thoughfully placed there.......basically a hole in the ground but with cover......getting up from the crouching position sent my head into a spin, and I wobbled out to find Ali sitting on the floor laughing and saying she was a bit dizzy!
From there we headed down some very steep bendy roads to Chivay, which is a little town surrounded by mountains. We took some of the ladies from the summit with us (they spend all day up there trying to sell their goods to the tourists) back to Chivay and that was quite nice....trying to talk to them in Spanglish. Once in Chivay, we headed straight to the hot springs.....thermal baths fed by the volcanoes at a constant temp of 85degrees....they were bloody HOT to get into and bloody FREEZING to get out of!!!! Then to the hotel......which didnt have heating!!!!! OMG! By this time it was about 5pm - we had been told that if were to suffer from altitude sickness it would arrive at anything up to 8pm......sure enough the closer it got to 8, the longer peoples faces became......headaches, nausea, upset tummies....in view of this we decided to eat in the hotel - what a mistake! The worst meal of the trip so far...apart from anything it took anything between 1.5 and 3hrs for the food to arrive....by which time most people had given up, or managed a few mouthfuls before disappearing to bed.
For my part.....I felt like my head was in a vice....across the base of my skull at the back and across my temples....Im sure someone was trying to replicate the method used on creating the 'long headed people' - apparently they put a plank on the back of their heads in a vice and tightened it by half a turn every day.....certainly felt pretty similar I would imagine. Sleep is also hard at altitude....you tend to hit a brief deep sleep and then spend the rest of the night tossing and turning....doesnt help when there is no heating in the room and the temp is almost freezing....
Day 2 in Chivay we had a lie in yeehawww. Up at 6am and off to the Colca Canyon (allegedly the deepest canyon in the world depending on who you speak to) to see the condors that come up out of the Canyon
at about 9am. The road there was absoultely horrendous...a bit like sitting on a pneumatic drill for a couple of hours with a migraine....We managed to see two of the condors, one of which had a wing span of about 3meters....theyre pretty amazing to see soaring over your heads. From there we headed back to Chivay, but stopped off in a small village at the primary school, which is sponsored by our tour company. That was a nice experience...the kids aged 3-5years had all dressed up in traditional outfits and put on a dance for us.....it was particularly cute because there were two little boys who seemed to have OD'd on e-numbers and were completely hyper....deliberately disrupting the dancing and causing general mayhem....of course we all ended up having to join in the dance each paired up with a small child - reminded me of the Hofmeister ad with the bear dancing! They then fed us this corn wine stuff (or tried to), which has generous dollops of human saliva in it to aid fermentation....it looked and smelled..errrr...gross.......where some of us (most of us?) failed to finish (start?) our serving it was simply poured back into the just to be used again later.......yuuummmmmy!
The rest of the day in Chivay was free to chill out...always nice to have some down time as the days here are generally long with all the travelling from a to b. Then out for dinner to another hotel where the buffet was great and we were treated to live music and dancing. The dancing briefly resembled the Hofmeister Bear ad again...but then developed into what can only be described as some kind of simulated mating ritual, which at points appeared also reminiscent of the sacrifice of ice-mummy Juanita! Imagine that if you can!
Today we have again travelled back over 5000 metres, and yes my head still hurts although not as bad...now I just have delightful sinus pain instead! Yeahhhh! We are now in Puno, which sits at about 4000metres. Tomorrow at 8am we head off to the Islands of Lake Titicaca, where we will stay the night with a local family. Apparently they will be dressing us up like locals and taking us to the local WI for s shindig - we have been warned to drink lots of beer in order to errr... enjoy the evening!
So...watch this space......we will be back in Puno on Sunday evening. From here I think we head to Cusco....but a few things to see and do on the way. Getting ever closer to the big adventure of the Inca Trail....hope to be well and truly used to the altitude by then. This is a great country....and although it is a very tiring trip, I think we both feel it was 100% the right trip to choose.
Anyway...Im off to find my thermals now...its bloody cold here - hope everyone back home is doing ok......send messages to entertain us....and see you all in a couple of weeks!!!
Lorna & Ali xxx
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Robert
non-member comment
Corn wine!
Hi Lorna and Ali Sounds like you are having a great time, looking forward to seeing the photos. That corn wine sounds delicious - there's got to be a marketing opportunity in that somewhere ("the only wine with gob in it")! Look forward to the next instalment of the roadshow! Take care. Robert