Day 34 (Colca Canyon)
Trip Start
Feb 13, 2007
1
35
61
Trip End
Apr 13, 2007
Yanque, Peru
Monday, March 19, 2007
The bus picks us up and we are off, driver, guide, and 13 in the group, they all seem like nice people which is a good start, nothing worse than getting into a bus of weirdos
We drive to Chivay, along the way reaching 4825m in the Pata Pampa pass, I don't feel anything untoward related to the altitude, but drink coca leaf tea, and eat coca sweets anyway, we stop for views of Misti volcano which is snow capped and high, lots of mist
To put that height into perspective the highest point in South Africa is Njesuthi at 3408m, its on the Lesotho border and is part of the Drakensberg, also the highest point in Britian is Ben Nevis at 1343m (Scotland) - so 4825m is pretty damn high (next for me Kilimanjaro at 5892m, just need to find some soldiers)
We also stop and get some time viewing vicunas, very rare animals similar to llamas and alpacas, but pretty shy - they have the finest wool of any animal (10 microns whereas sheep are about 30 microns), but have never been domesticated, leading to hunting which almost saw the end of the species, they are now protected, very graceful animals
Later we pass large herds of alpacas, quite a treat cos they are new to us, the area around Arequipa for 2 hrs is barren and desolate, which seems to be the norm in between towns
The weather is miserable, its been raining quite a bit, its cold, the very opposite of what we expected, its actually summer, but rainy season is now in force in these parts, the russians in the front have just been in Cusco for a week, it rained every day, oh oh
The drive down into the canyon is incredible, the views are magnificent, the roads are pretty hairy, some wicked turns, at one view point we get a lucky break and get a condor sighting, quite far away, huge birds, but they glide so easily, do you know they are the largest birds that fly, their wingspan is up to 3.2m long
Chivay doesn't look to exciting, luckily Sylvia and I are not staying in Chivay, the rest all get dropped off at their hotels/hostels, and we are then taken to Yanque, 8km away, where we are dropped off at our residencial
We have taken the more interesting option of staying with a Peruvian family in their home for the night, and only for a few minutes did we think we had made the wrong choice, cos it proved to be an awesome night
First we were introduced to Natalio and Hilde, and their two children Patrick and Flora-Marie, Natalio speaks good english which is a good start, we have coca leaf tea with honey and lemon, and look around the place, its lovely, traditional
Then Natalio takes us down to the hot baths, fed by natural hot springs, never done this before and its great, we hop into the pool with all the locals, its big, and damn hot, its still raining but you soon forget it, I see a empty pool with a roof next to the open pool, turns out its the tourist pool, we are now just off season so its not used, we get to interact with the locals rather, the youngsters take great interest in us, they impress us with extravagant dives into the pool, we stay for an hour and a half, good fun
The drive there and back is only about 10 min, made interesting by the 1985 Datsun that Natalio drives, what a classic
That night we have a traditional andean meal, fantastic soup starter, alpaca steak main, pudding, plenty of coca leaf tea, fire going, Natalio played us some Peruvian music on his guitar, Flora-Marie kept peaking at us from behind the wall, she is very young, maybe 7, and tourists are a treat
(I find out the next day the Chivay chaps couldn't go to their hot springs cos the road was swamped from all the rain, man where they bleak, Yanque picks up more points)
