Day 36 : Colca Canyon Day 2

Get up at 4:55am, the guide said there will be a person knocking on your door at 5:00am, there isn't! Luckily, I have my cell phone to wake me up, take a quick shower. Go out to the dining room waiting for breakfast at 5:30am as instructed. The dining room has no one, and the light is off. I start to wonder if I am still in a dream. About 10 mins later, la señorita finally comes to serve the breakfast. Just some breads, juice and tea. I am like I can help myself for that. Other tour mates starts to show up. One of the American girls oversleeps, and she does not show up until 5 mins before we leave. I don't blame her, she has no alarm, and expecting someone to knock on her door, which does not happen until everyone is already eating breakfast.

Anyway, taking off to a town called Yanque, where we pick up a few other tour mates who stayed in a better hotel. The town is small but cute. In the early morning, before the kids go to school, they are dressed in their traditional clothes and dancing around the fountain near to the church. It's probably for tourists and get some extra money for their school or themselves. But it's actually kind of nice. We are on our way to the Condor Cross lookout (or Mirador de Colca Canyon) after we get everyone. When we leave the hotel, it is still cloudy, but as we get to Yanque, the clouds start to break up, thanks god. Turn out we have quite a good weather for viewing condors. Before long, we arrive at the lookout, there are a few condors flying next magnificent to the cliff already. The guide says the luck is on us today. The view is , the condors are huge and they are so close to where we are, although these few condors we see are not the biggest one, the adult condors have some white furs around their necks. The few we see do not have that, they are young condors, but still it's quite exciting to see them cruising around the canyon. I also see hummingbirds, snow cap volcanoes, the world's 2nd deepest canyon (some 3600m deep) and many cactus. After an hour or so, we head back down to Chivay for lunch, after stopping by a called Maca (in Peru, Maca is a herbal substance equivalent to Viagra, kind of funny.) In Maca, I take a picture with a little girl and her alpaca, they are so cute sitting on the ground. I just can't resist. In the church next to us, there are a lot of people having a funeral. It's probably not a good idea, but I take some pictures of the people around the church. I just love their faces, their clothes, and the colors. They are all good elements for pictures. So, today's photo album has a lot of local peoples' faces.

After another money wasting lunch buffet, we are heading back to Arequipa. I am totally disappointed with the meals of this tour, the 3 meals together is already more expensive than the tour itself. It's their way of grabbing your money I supposed. I don't mind if they are more expensive, but give me some options and wish they at least tasted better than a 3 Soles menu. Back to town, I am searching for a place where I can do laundry. I also join another half day countryside tour for tomorrow. At dinner, I finally try the guinea pig (the locals call it Cuy). A must-check out picture of the day, it looks really scary, they cut the guinea pig along its tummy in half and just spread open, deep fried it, and lay on the dish with head and everything. I need to operate it into smaller piece and just eat it like that. When I first open it leg, its claws prick on my fingers, it feels a moment of disguise. But after all, I am a Chinese who supposes to anything that moves. So, I chew on it. It tastes really good in fact. Kind of like eating deep fried pigeons. At the end, I even eat its lower jaws and the cheeks. Those are the best part usually. For fish anyway. I would eat it again if there is opportunity, maybe cooked in a different way. I also treat myself some ice-cream tonight, mango and coconut. Yum!

I walk by a saloon, just decide to go in and have a hair cut. I know they are charging me more because I am tourists, he pretty much make up the price as I ask them, but it's much cheap compared to what I usually paid in the US, so I try not to think about it. I just want to keep the hair short enough to leave no shape when I take off my hat. They actually do a lousy job, I have to go back to the hotel, ask for a scissor and cut a little more to make it look balance. Oh well. The next time I will cut my hair will probably be either in Australia or Hong Kong.

Back to the hotel after a fine evening, satisfied with the Cuy. I finally try it. In this trip, I have been setting some little goals everyday, I need to do this, I need to try that. So far, I have met these goals so far. I am happy about that.

Photos here: Day 36 (Yanque y Condor Cross), Day 36 (Maca y la noche)

Day 35 : Colca Canyon Day 1

When I am waiting at the lobby for the tour to pick me, I find that there are 2 British guy, and 2 German guys have joined the same tour. We are all waiting, the tour bus is late. When the first vehicle arrives, they pick up the Germans. The tour is so big that it takes 3 vehicles in total. Me along with the Brits are picked up by the second Mercedes van. The weather isn't good at all today, very cloudy. I am just hoping we will still see something. Our first stop is a convenience store for everyone to pee. Once we get to the hillside, it is not as easy to find baños (toilets). Based on the original itinerary, we would go around the body of the volcano Chachani to its behind, and then we will pass by some local villages, the national protected zone where we would see some lakes and vicuña, continue to the highest point of the trip Patapampa at 4910m, where we will see 3 volcanoes, including the one the ice-maiden Juanita were found. Lunch at Chivay, then we will go to a hot spring, dinner with folk music and dance.

We do get to see some vicuña, they are the same family with the llamas and alpaca, but much more elegant and skinny. They are not domesticated either, so we only see them behind some fences. Kind of excited. Until the rain starts falling down, we continue going up the hill, the altitude does hit some of us, people start to chew on coca leaves. It's the 2009, I am coca candies instead. :P I think people just chew it for experience. I heard it tastes really bad by itself. Anyway, we get to the peak at Patapampa, we see no volcanoes, they get white out. It is snowing on the top of the mountain. We get a quick pee, steal a few snapshot of the "green" rocks (which only exists above 3500m sea level), and the stack of rocks where people place their offerings to mother Earth, those stacks of stones are everywhere. Disappointed that we don't get to see the volcanoes but we move on to Chivay to have lunch - an expensive and tasteless lunch buffet, I mean even Panda Express in the US is better than that lunch buffet. I hate it when they assume that tourists like buffet. That's so 1980s! Chivay is also the town we will stay a night. Check in at our hotel. My room is literally a bed (well two beds) in a box. But the whole tour + hotel is only 60 Soles (US$20). What am I complaining about, right?

Take a quick nap for the altitude, then we get to the hot spring, it's cold at the mountain areas when it is cloudy, even though it's almost summer and it's quite hot in Arequipa at this time of the year. I have brought my swim trunks. At first, kind of worried, since it's those swimmer's kind of brief style. Luckily, the tour mostly consists of European, and they are also wearing those kind of briefs, so I am not like the only one who exposes my thighs. Anyway, it is good to be in the hot water for a while, I even go into the sauna too. Steam for another 10 mins. We must go back to the hotel, and get ready for the dinner. The dinner is as disappointing as the lunch. It's not buffet, but as expensive and does not taste good. The folk music and dance is ok. A bit touristy. They are playing with the Belgium group and French group to see which groups shout more loudly. When they announce there is this amigo from China in the house, and my tour guide makes me raise my hands, I am almost embarrassed. This is the thing I hate about joining a group tour. Seriously.

Go straight to bed after the dinner, since we need to get up at 5:00am to go to the Colca Canyon lookout to see the condors (a huge bird when it extends its wing, it can reach 3m long). At least the shower is hot, and the bed is comfortable enough. No complaint. But because of the weather, I have taken much pictures today. Hopefully, the weather will be better tomorrow.

Photos here: Day 35