Colca Canyon

October 21-22nd
Yet another night bus from Nazca to Arequipa, a small city in which we spent the day wandering and shopping. It is nicknamed the White City because a lot of the old buildings are made out of white stone collected from the volcanoes surrounding the city. There are three visible: Misty, Chan-channy and picu-picu. In the evening the whole group went out to a really nice dinner where we got our first taste of Al Paca; my new favourite meat. It was served on volcanic rock which was really cool. I'm glad we tried it before we saw all the llamas and al pacas around, they're so darn cute its slightly harder to enjoy eating it now :( After dinner a bunch of us went to a bar and then a club to attempt some salsa, which was a fun time.

Its a good thing we didn't party to hard because the early morning bus ride the next day was quite an adventure in itself. It was the start of our tour to the Colca Canyon- which involves a lot of windy bumpy roads. It's so beautiful here, the pictures don't do it justice. We first went up into the mountains and volcanoes. At one point we got to 4900m. We got out at this viewpoint and I could definitely feel the altitude- shortness of breath and dizziness, we had to walk around really slow. This lookout was covered as far as you can see in little stone piles like inukshuks for pacha madre (mother earth) that people make and wish on, which we did before continuing on. The entire drive was stunning and eventually we arrived in a tiny town called Chivay, which is one of about 20 villages along the canyon. We did a small group hike near the town- getting in some practice before the inca trail! That evening another lovely dinner that included local traditional music and dance entertainment. It was interesting, the tradition clothing and costuming here is so cool, extremely intricate. Most of the people in the town still where really traditional clothing too, which is neat. The dancers got us involved throughout the evening and at one point we had the guys in skirts, girls in hats, and I got involved in a strange story telling dance where I got whipped and then carried off over the guys shoulder- a bit odd, didn't quite catch the meaning behind it, but a good laugh!

The next day was a 5am wake up in order to head to the Condor Crossing. Our bus was almost off roading, going down dirt roads running along the edge of the massive canyon. The mountains are huge, and you see lots of wild vecunyas, as well as domesticated llamas, al pacas, and donkeys everywhere. All the mountains have thousands of pre Incan terraces built into them that the locals still use for their agricultural land. The canyon was so impressive, so deep with the small Colca River at the bottom. It's always shocking to see houses perched pricariously along it in total isolation. Then people who live there have to hike hours along these mountain paths to get into the next village for supplies. Seeing the Condors was pretty cool. They're giant birds of prey that glide throughout the canyon. They're brown when young, black when older and they get white crests around their necks too. It was a lovely morning sitting in the sun watching them and wandering around the trails along the cliff.
The weather here is challenging because we're at such high altitude (Chivay is approx 3600 m above sea level), the nights are really freezing, as was the early morning, but as soon as the sun comes out its baking, hard to dress for!
After we got back from the morning Condor Crossing we just had some lunch and a little wander through the markets, going to have a relaxing afternoon, and then it's back to Arequipa tomorrow for a few hours before our longest yet night bus to Cusco. We'll have a couple days there before the big Inca Trail hike. Should probably start doing my squats and jumping jacks now, eh?
- Court <3

Pictures:
1- Traditional "dancing"
2- on hike in Chuvay
3- viewpoint along drive
4- the "inukshuk" stop
5- condors!
6- Colca Canyon
7- more Colca Canyon
8- vecunya!
9- more Colca Canyon