1. I wish that I had spent more than two days working through my ´30 days to great Spanish´ book. Language is proving to be a challenge!
2. I wish that I had spent more than a week working out to my 6 week excerise DVD. Our first 3 day hike almost killed me!
3. Regardless of the above, this trip is a dream come true!
For those of you who don´t know, I´m in South America for the next 3 months with the delightful Helen Davidson. The reason that I´m here is that Helen got me a little tipsy one night in Victoria while celebrating her quitting her job (true story!). Truth be told it wouldn´t have been that hard a sell had I been sober, but the slight inebriation happily glossed over any financial worries I had (due to the whole not working thing at the moment).
And so here I am. I met Helen in Miraflores exactly one week ago. We spent a day and a half catching up and wandering around, exploring the beach, the city and sitting on numerous patios drinnking wine and eating (mostly) stuffed avacados (quite possibly the greatest culinary invention of all time).
Simply put, I adore Peru. I haven´t been here for 9 years but the sights, the sounds, the smells, the sunshine - it feels as though I was just here yesterday. Our lovely hostel room overlooked a huge park full of palm trees, kids playing till past midnight, salsa dancing, a nightly market and little stray cats everywhere. The incessant honking from the chaos that is every Peruvian road I´ve seen, laughter and chatter and music....and did I mention the stuffed avacados!
Miraflores was great but it very much felt like a ´meeting spot´. Neither Helen or I had any desire to explore much more of the area so on Monday afternoon we hopped on a bus for Arequipa. And what a bus! We probably shelled out a little more than was necessary, but we scored two seats at the front of a double decker - foot rests, reclining seats, blankets and pillows and the VIEW! The next 17 hours sped by and we both managed to get some decent sleep as well. I awoke that morning to the pink sun rising through the incredibly thick fog over a landscape that can best be described as ´moon-like´. Barren, rocky desert for as far as the eye could see. (one day I will upload photos!)
A few hours later we arrived in beautiful, bustling Arequipa. The architecture is incredible, so much character in every nook and cranny. Every other arch way seems to lead to another little market or restaurant or cafe...we spent the day exploring, but were much more excited about doing one of the hikes in the Colca Canyon. So, we went to bed quite early that night in preparation for waking up at 4:30am the next day to catch a bus to Cabanaconde.
Only 6 hours this time around, but on one of the local buses. It was jam-packed with tourists and locals alike, sweltering hot and bumpier than I know how to describe. The road was thin and windy and our bus driver just sped along without a care in the world while Helen and I gazed (slightly terrified) out the window at the sheer drop with not a guard rail to be seen!
But we made it safe and sound to the little town of Cabanaconde. Nestled at the top of the Colca Canyon and surrounded by mountains as far as the eye could see, it was breathtaking to say the least. Cabanaconde is quite a wee town. There is a main sqaure which has numerous little cobble stone streets with little shops and restaurants, little houses and then fields of corn and cacti that seem to go on forever. After resting up briefly in one of the hostels we strapped on our packs and headed out on the beginning of our 3 day hike.
Actually, we didn´t have ´packs´, we had A pack that held all our food, sleeping bags, clothes and first aid kit. We thought at the time it would be easy to just share the pack, switching back and forth every hour or so. Ha. Had we only known!
We arrived at the edge of the canyon after only 20 minutes, already out of breath. It hadn´t occured to either of us that altitude might be a factor. Oops. Cabanconde sits at over 4000 meters and yes, altitude was a factor indeed! Luckily, the first day was mostly down hill. It took us about 3 hours to walk down the canyon down a steep, windy, rocky path. With our heavy pack, the altitude and the harsh decline we were exhausted by the time we reached the bottom. It was a beatiful walk though with views to die for; snow capped mountains, red rock with little crevices and caves, cacti and all sorts of greenery and a bright, almost cloudless blue sky.
At the bottom of the canyon was a large river and a rickety old bridge which we crossed on our way to find our accomodation for the night (in the little town of San Juan). Excited about the ´short cut´ we had learnt about, we started booting it up hill only to find that walking uphill after 3 hours straight down was challening to say the least. The altitude had hit me particularly hard, so Helen bravely took the pack for the rest of the walk (straight up hill for over half an hour) while I slowly clambered my way up...
And we made it to San Juan. Our accomodation was a basic little bungalow with two beds and a toilet and we slept solidly for 12 hours that night. After chatting with some of the other people that were doing the hike, eating our peanut butter and banana sandwhiches we fell sound asleep by 7pm!
The next morning we took our time, preparing a massive fruit salad and drinking coca tea (to help with the altitude) and headed out at around 10am. This day of the hike was my favourite, hands down. We walked through two little villages (more peanut butter sandwhiches for lunch in the main square of one). The villages were gorgeous, full of lush plant life, farm land, puppies everywhere and amazing little houses with tin roofs. This day of the hike was very up and and down, through varying landscape: the villages, the fields, along steep paths on the side of the canyon, hot, dry flat land covered in more cacti, and then another incredibly steep decent back to the river and yet another bridge to our second nights accomodation.
This night was at the ´oasis´, a much more basic site. Our ´hut´was just that, a lovely little round structure made of bamboo-like material, a mud floor and two beds. There was a swimming pool though which was an amazing relief after many sweaty hours hiking up and down and around in the hot, dusty air.
That evening we relaxed, treated ourselves to a hot cooked meal, chatted with some more of our fellow hikers and played with play-doh that someone had brought! It was a lovely evening and we once again fell asleep quite early (about 8:30 this time around).
The next morning we awoke at 4:30am to meet Alonso and Elena in hopes of covering as much ground as possible before the sun rose and got too hot. This day was ALL up hill, over 1000 meters. Needless to say, it was HARD. But beautiful, and incredibly satisfying. Watching the sun rise over the mountains was something I´ll remember for the rest of my life. Helen and I took plenty of stops, switched the pack back and forth every 20 minutes or so and after about 3.5 hours we made it to the top! Leaving so early in the morning was brilliant as the sun was scorching by the last half hour or so. I couldn´t imagine hiking up the canyon mid-day as some of the other people we had met were planning to do!
At the top we collapsed and rested awhile before trekking another hour or so back to Cabanaconde. We had breakfast, wandered around and then got on another bus for the 6 hours back to Arequipa.
And here we are, back in Arequipa spending the day catching up on emails and thinking about the next few weeks of our trip.
We´re going out dancing tonight with some people and then heading on a bus to Puno tomorrow. Once in Puno we´re planning on exploring some of the islands on Lake Titicaca (one of the highest elevated lakes in the world!), then heading to Copacabana, more islands and in a week or so LaPaz, Bolivia!
That´s all I´ve got for now. Apologies in advance for the spelling and gramatical errors that I´m sure have plagued this entry - I just can´t be bothered to edit as there´s too much exploring to be done!
I will eventually put up some photos, but for now - for those of you on facebook, Helen has posted some today which I´m tagged in. I´m 99% sure that you can access her album by clicking on one of the photos I´m tagged in on my page.
Much love to you all and I´ll write again in another week or so!
xo, Evi
