Colca Canyon and some other pictures...
Wow. The Colca Canyon was gorgeous. The valley itself has over 600 hectares of agricultural terraces as well as various bits of pre-Incan society including some tombs and a carved rock that shows the active volcanos from the time and the fresh water springs in the area. My tour group was a bit of an odd mix though -- six people from various Soviet nations on a post-Cisco Systems conference trip, a German couple, a honey-mooning Canadian couple, and an older couple from Hong Kong and England. And me. A weird mix that didn't gell particularly well, to the point that I didn't even learn everyone's names! About that.
The first day out of Arequipa we drove through a national reserve for vicuñas -- a wild cousin of the llama and the alpaca. Although to my mind "wild" is an odd name for a population that is caught and shaved for their wool every two years... but hey. We also stopped at a series of rock formations that are essentially plugs of harder rock left over from the erosion of the rest of the volcano around them. The landscape is lunar though:
We drove through a number of small villages on the way to Chivay, where I stayed in glorious isolation in my own double bed, in a room with a private bathroom. Without a single supplement (for once!). The next morning we began our descent into the canyon -- 1.2 km down in 6.5km total. Wow. My knees were complaining at the end of that, for sure! But the pool at the bottom of the valley and the hot lunch went quite a long way to assuaging my hurts :) After a siesta we took what was meant to be a leisurely afternoon hike "a little bit up, some flat and down again" our guide said. Or not! We went back up almost half a kilometre and hiked for almost two more hours. But the views were worth it:
We got up at 3:45 the next morning so that we could climb out of the canyon before the sun came up. We made the hike in forty-five minutes less than usual -- oy!! But it was good to not be climbing almost vertically in the heat of the day, it's true. We went to Cruz del Condor after that, and stopped to watch the condors fly the morning thermals. WOW. THey are so huge, and so graceful. Apparently they are the world's heaviest bird that can fly and the second largest flying bird overall (the largest being the albatross). Awesome. I thought I´d put a few other condor pics onto my memory stick, but it seems I didn't. Still, this one is pretty anyway :)
I must go and retrieve my belongings from the laundry, buy some lunch and pack to get on the bus to Puno. More soon!
The first day out of Arequipa we drove through a national reserve for vicuñas -- a wild cousin of the llama and the alpaca. Although to my mind "wild" is an odd name for a population that is caught and shaved for their wool every two years... but hey. We also stopped at a series of rock formations that are essentially plugs of harder rock left over from the erosion of the rest of the volcano around them. The landscape is lunar though:
We drove through a number of small villages on the way to Chivay, where I stayed in glorious isolation in my own double bed, in a room with a private bathroom. Without a single supplement (for once!). The next morning we began our descent into the canyon -- 1.2 km down in 6.5km total. Wow. My knees were complaining at the end of that, for sure! But the pool at the bottom of the valley and the hot lunch went quite a long way to assuaging my hurts :) After a siesta we took what was meant to be a leisurely afternoon hike "a little bit up, some flat and down again" our guide said. Or not! We went back up almost half a kilometre and hiked for almost two more hours. But the views were worth it:
We got up at 3:45 the next morning so that we could climb out of the canyon before the sun came up. We made the hike in forty-five minutes less than usual -- oy!! But it was good to not be climbing almost vertically in the heat of the day, it's true. We went to Cruz del Condor after that, and stopped to watch the condors fly the morning thermals. WOW. THey are so huge, and so graceful. Apparently they are the world's heaviest bird that can fly and the second largest flying bird overall (the largest being the albatross). Awesome. I thought I´d put a few other condor pics onto my memory stick, but it seems I didn't. Still, this one is pretty anyway :)
I must go and retrieve my belongings from the laundry, buy some lunch and pack to get on the bus to Puno. More soon!
Comments
It's a pity about the tour group - not a great group for getting to know people - thank goodness it was a short tour!
Love you tonnes! I'm so glad you are having such a good time! Dar says hi too!! :)