After a few days of rest in Lima, post-fun with Nate, I got myself on a night bus to Arequipa. It was a pleasant 15 hours of windy roads in the mountains, nausea, a tiny Peruvian man sleeping half on top of me and snoring in my ear, and two shitty meals. I arrived in Arequipa, restless, but still in one piece. The first day I pretty much napped most of the day. The second day I wandered around some of the city, got some juice and prepared myself for the 2 day, 1 night trek to the canyon.
I got up at 2:45am, got picked up at 3am, the bus picked up a few more people and we were off on a 3 hour drive into Colca Canyon. About 45 minutes in I started to feel pretty queezy, but tried to sleep. That never works. When the sun started to rise I tried to stare out the windshield and took deep breaths. My head started to pound. Around the time we reached nearly 5000m I got up and asked the driver to pull over, and the inevitable happened. One of the guides gave me oil to rub on my hands and face...? It happened again. Then my guide gave me a cotton swab with alcohol on it and instructed me to sniff it. When we finally arrived at the village of Chivay for breakfast, I sat drinking mate de coca, a tea of coca leaves that helps with altitude sickness. I managed to stomach a piece of bread, thankfully, becuase we had one hell of a hike in front of us.
We got back in the bus and stopped at Cruz del Condor, where we were lucky to see the flight of the condors. I couldn't walk down to the mirador because everytime I walked too much I felt dizzy and nauseus. But I still saw the magnificent condors flying above us. Next stop, the start of our hike. My guide was the nicest guide I have encountered, walking with me most of the way and stopping with me, about every 5-10 minutes to catch my breath and gain my energy. He even gave me one of his good poles to hike with and offered to carry my stuff - which I refused of course. The beating, blazing sun didn't help much either. After what seemed like all of eternity - around 3 hours - I made it down the all downhill path to the river. We breaked for a few minutes and carried on for another half hour or so to our lunch stop. I bought some gatorade and started to feel a little better sitting in the shade, hydrating myself. We ate and were off again, for another 3 hours of mostly downhill slope into the oasis. When we finally got down there I could barely walk and I showered, took a nap, ate dinner, drank some more mate de coca and passed out.
Next morning we were up at 5am and hiked all uphill for 3 hours to the top. Thankfully it was mostly out of the sun and I felt much better than the first day. It was still incredibly hard, but I felt all the more accomplished when we finished as a result. Seriously, that was the most intense trek of my life! We walked into the village of Chivay again, for breakfast. I was so hungry I ate all the scrambled eggs I was served and bread and butter. Then we got on our "Japanese tour bus" as the guide called it, and stopped at view points to see the valley, and a small village where we tried pisco sours with (insert name of insanely sour fruit that I forgot the name of here), which were really good, and another village with hot springs. Then we stopped for lunch where I ate two plates of food and dessert at the buffet, before heading back up to 4910m to see the volcanoes. Luckily, I wasn't sick that time. Lastly, we drove through the national reserve and saw alpacas, and even spotted some wild vicuñas, and then I passed out on the drive back to Arequipa. And then I showered and felt like I was clean for the first time ever. Oh heavenly shower.
The canyon was absolutely beautiful. The trek was physically, mentally and spiritually challenging, exhausting and empowering. Thanks to the universe for letting me through. I think I may be done with high altitude for this trip. Lake Titicaca is pretty close, but I just kind of want to chill out in the desert for a while instead. I'm feeling drained and overdone, and apprehensive about finishing my trip and going home, but wanting to continue on and see as much as possible until the end. I feel like a bottle of coke that was just shaken. Take that as you will. Now to decide where to go next...
