Monday morning we were picked up by a bus and started the five hour trip up to the alto Plano and the Colca Valley. Arequipia lays at 2650 meters and we had planned to spend at least a week here acclimatizing. It did not seem to matter. We climbed to an altitude of 5,000 meters before heading down to 3600 meters at Chivay. Well three out of four of us ended up with bad headaches. This was always compounded by sinus problems with a cold. It’s winter here and Peruvians have no heat, what so ever. We visited the hot springs in Chivay first where the cool air made us reluctant to go in, but we succumbed and were glad we did. The temperature in was 36 but the air was 10 Celsius. That evening we had a quick walk around the square settling on a nice modern fusion style restaurant where we had Alpaca and fresh water trout. Back at the rooms it was a quick strip down and under the sheets in an ever increasing chill. We woke the next morning, had a quick breakfast of coca tea and pan along with jam and juice and hit the road. The road was what one should call real estate challenged. Bare inches separate you from the hereafter. One feature we have noticed are a lot of roadside memorials lining the shoulders on all the roads in Peru. I mean a lot, like every kilometer instead of curbstones. At times I swore the wheels were hanging over the edge. Deb gladly relinquished the window seat and I spent a lot of time tuned out visually eyes straight ahead and mentally tuned in to my IPod. The road along the southern edge of the Colca valley takes you to see the Condors at a lookout the locals have created. Evidently they nest at the steepest part of the valley for security and spend the early morning hours circling as a group, waiting for the days thermals to heat up before moving on to search for food. They are not predators but scavengers although we heard tales of them doing flybys on unsuspecting cattle hoping they would fall to their deaths.
The majority of the valley is terraced on both sides wherever there is enough earth to till and it must have taken more than a millennia to do all the construction involved. Frankly its a bit mind boggling. We were also shown some pre-Inka burial crypts of stones set high on the clift walls seemingly to get the intended closer to the heavens.
We had a nice hour long hike along the rim looking down into the gorge when we spotted the first of the condors. They were very active and certainly seemed to play to the crowd. After the trip back was a two hours with a stop at the village of Maca and then lunch at Chivay before the climb back up the Alto Plano to 5000 meters and down again to Arequipa. On the way we witnessed a series of small dust twisters, very cool. By this time I was having a hard time breathing and wasn’t feeling all that good by the time we arrived back at the hotel. After dinner the real agony started and I spent the night offering goods to the porcelain god and then spent the entire next day sleeping off the ritual. By Thursday I was well enough to venture out again but everything was small steps and slow. Meanwhile the girls in my absence had made an executive decision and had bought tickets and hotel reservations for Puno on Lake Titicaca.
to be continued
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