Peru days 17-23

Colca Canyon!

We started the day with a little hitch. We had to make it to Plaza des Armas by 8:20am to catch our tour bus, we were ready to leave the hostel by 5 to 8 but there was a slight problem: the front door was locked from the inside and no one was around to let us out. The lady who ran the place had her bedroom by the front door with a little doorbell outside and you would have to ring her to get in and out but this morning she was nowhere to be found. After ringing her doorbell around 20 times Carol and I went off to look for a possible escape route. We found one by going through a garage at the back and then we had to climb an 8 foot high fence to make it out. We hailed a cab and made to the plaza right at 8:20. Phew!

Then began a scenic 5 hour bus ride to our first destination: the town of Chivay. The road wound its way around desert hill after desert hill - some stretches of the road were only dirt and gravel. We saw many many llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas (close relatives), and sheep. We have some ridiculous pictures, but it´ll still be a couple weeks before we can empty our memory card.

Cañon del Colca is the second deepest canyon in the world - the deepest one is only about a hundred kilometres from it, still in Peru - just a bit less accessible for tourists. Colca canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the US according to Wikkipedia, but who knows how accurate that is!

We got to go to a hot springs in Chivay, then visited the Canyon the next day, travelling a couple hours to a point where condors soar on air currents rising from the canyon. The condors at points were SO close to the tourists, it was insane. Condors have a wing span of about 8 feet... there was one sitting on a ledge, hidden from the tourists close to it, but from our viewpoint we could see just how big it was compared to the people. MUCH wider than a person, it´s whole body was bigger than the torso of a person standing up... it was crazy. It was beautiful to watch them soar over the canyon. At one point a male and female condor were on the same air current, so they soared in perfect unison together, tipping their wings this way and that at the same moment.

Carol sat down to enjoy the view but unfortunately sat under a cactus... which had been shedding its needles onto the ground. She got up again really quickly!

Since returning from our tour of Chivay, we spent a few more days in Arequipa since we really enjoyed that city. Very affordable food ($1 - $3 per meal for both of us together), and $10 cdn a night for the magic combination of 1) hot showers 2) comfortable bed 3) quiet room 4) cable televisions with many movies with NO commercials - Peru has better TV in some ways!

Now we are in Puno, a 7 hour (slow, and awful) bus ride from Arequipa. The highlight of the bus ride for Carol was a little girl who called us gringos (the first time we´ve heard that term!) and who was very interested in our skin colour. She pet Carol´s arm and showed us her teeth, lets just say - it´s important to brush your teeth!!!!! She was a sweetheart though.

We visited Lake Titicaca today, the highest navigable lake in the world. We´re staying overnight in Puno, and hopefully tomorrow we will be off to Cuzco, and soon the height of our trip - Machu Picchu!