 |
| Colca Canyon |
I woke up feeling considerably better although still with a slight headache and bunged up. It's impossible to tell whether the headache is from my cold, or due to not having acclimatised to the altitude yet. I managed breakfast and we all piled back into the van to drive to the Colca Canyon and Condor Cross. As we rose out of Chivay, the valley narrowed and steepened. It also became more green and lush. The volcanic soil here is naturally very fertile, so they grow all sorts of crops; potato, quinoa, avocado, corn and more. Plus grazing pastures for cows, llama and sheep. The earth's bounty. The road was surprisingly good, although we could see the remains of one on the opposite valley wall which was destroyed in part with rock slides during the last big earthquake. It's impassable now.
 |
| Condor Cross |
 |
| Local traditional dress |
We stopped an hour later at the Condor Cross - a rocky outcrop with locals wearing colourful traditional dress, selling woolen goods, food, pictures and more. Lots of other tourists too, all gathered to see the legendary condors. As the tourist crowd swelled, no condors appeared. We waited patiently. And waited. And waited. Then after 40 minutes, two appeared, gracefully gliding towards us, circling back and around, but never making a single beat of their enormous wings. Serene and majestic, they swooped over us and away. Magic! We waited another half an hour and then, just as we were about to give up, three more appeared, then another two from the opposite direction. It was so special to see so many, gracefully drawing circles in the sky above us before gliding off into the distance.
 |
| Condors! |
As a group, we walked along the cliffs, partly to take in the views and partly to help us all acclimatise. Loads of huge cacti, wild flowers and birds, and we all felt the thin air as we hiked for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile my headache had returned with force - I'm now a bit worried about the altitude but at least we'll be sleeping lower tonight. But first we have to go back over the high pass we came over yesterday...
 |
| Me and my alpaca |
Stopping off at a local town to visit the church and have photos taken with a very cute baby alpaca and his ornately dressed owner, and another stop for huge buffet lunch, we drove back through Chivay and started to climb back up to the pass. The sunshine gave way to clouds, rain and at the top, snow. My head throbbed. The 4 hour drive back was uneventful and we reached our same hotel in Arequipa around 5pm.
Arequipa was just getting going on a Saturday night, but we had an early start the next day so headed straight back after an odd meal of potatoes covered in a mayonnaise sauce! I slept badly - all this sitting in vans, lying in bed and a soft mattress and I woke with a killer backache at 3am. By 4, Dee was awake too, just in time for the entire room to start shaking. At first, in my sleepy state, I couldn't understand what was going on, but as Dee whispered 'Is this an earthquake?' I was thinking the same thing. We debated what to do - and jumped out of bed to stand in the doorway, just in time for the shaking to die down. It had lasted a good 45 seconds or more - and later in the morning we found out that a 6.8 quake had gone off near the coast. Not that far away, 60 seconds of panic and 16 people lost their lives. Thankfully we were all safe and having left the safety of our door frame, finally fell asleep.
As a group, we walked along the cliffs, partly to take in the views and partly to help us all acclimatise. Loads of huge cacti, wild flowers and birds, and we all felt the thin air as we hiked for 45 minutes.
Comments
Post a Comment