Yanque, Peru
Friday, December 7, 2007
So then we boarded a bus to visit the Colca Canyon - twice as deep as the grand canyon (move over United States). We had to go up to an altitude of 4800 meters then back down to 3600 to
Yanque - a little pueblo at the beginning the canyon in the middle of the precolumbian terracing that has been in use for farming for over 500 years. It is still pretty rustic - most of the fields are worked by hand. We found a great little hotel that had a sauna and juccuzi to relax in so it was nice. We took a bus the next day (at 4 am) to the deepest part of the canyon called Cruz del Condor, where there is a large family of Condors you can see flying on the morning up drafts. The bus ride hugging the canyon edge was an adventure in and of itselt! The condors were impressive even if we didn^t get a really close view, and the view was awesome! We went to a small museaum in
Yanque describing canyon life through the ages that was pretty neat (although we got decended upon by a bus full of chicas on a school trip)! Spent the rest of the day relaxing and trying to find a taxi to pick us up at 3:30 in the morning for another 4 am bus ride (sensing a pattern). The guy we found had a very sad looking car that did not have low beams (as we found out riding into Chivay for dinner) and stunk of gass - not to mention that there was no padding left on the seats.
Anyways, we were planning on going to Cuzco via
Arequipa but when we got up at 3 am we found a very sick Maxine (Dave^s mom) she was having trouble breathing and was nauseus and puking (classic altitude sickness symptoms we discovered later). As we were getting to the bus station all the locals were recomending coca tea so at the station we got here some tea and then all piled on the bus to
Arequipa. We just stopped there as it is about 1200 meters lower then where we had been staying and let her rest for the day. Luckily the next day she was back to normal but we had to alter our plans - no Cuzco and Machu Pichu for us(mountains). We are off to Nazca instead (sea level).
