Arequipa & my Colca Canyon Experience

I'm not sure what happened, but when I got to Arequipa I lost all my motivation for anything. It probably had something to do with the fact that I had my third bout of stomach bug and was trying to put off buying antibiotics for the second time. Although I spent about 3 days there, I didn't see all that much of the city. I spent most of the time walking the same set of streets not being able to decide anything, getting dizzy and hot then cold and in pain because I'd managed to get sunburnt on my neck 'working the fields' in Pichingoto.












Sitting in the Plaza de Armas of Arequipa I thought, how strange... I've landed somewhere in the south of Spain. Perhaps it was the palm trees or the rounded domes of some of the buildings but it definitely had a moorish feel to it. The dark skinned, quechan speaking Cusquenians felt a world away. I also felt like that Arequipa was a pretty city but every time I tried to fit it into the frame of a photo there were electrical wires or satellite dishes in the way.

The Plaza de Armas was pretty too; Palm trees, a fountain that reflects the sky, perfectly pruned plants .. and about 3 times as many people in half the space and thousands of pigeons. I did notice that, given the numerous rats of the sky, there was no pigeon poo to be seen on the ground. This is how they keep people employeed, dutifully washing the ground of pigeon poop.

I did spend an afternoon in the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. A monasty for nuns that for over 300 years was closed to the public. This building, or set of buildings, is huge. It even has streets and takes up a whole block of the city. It's so peaceful and nice in there. The sun is warm and the walls are painted in a earthy reds and a blue that makes the sky look dull.













I don't have much to say about the colca canyon except that, I don't ever want to do anything like that again. It's my fault. I knew I didn't like bus tours but being sick, 3 days of trekking didn't seem like a good idea and I felt bad leaving Arequipa without seeing one of the main attractions of the area.

After having been rounded up from our respective accommodations (with a bit of a hiccup when some sheep, - I mean 'tourists', got herded into the wrong pen (or bus.. which ever you prefer), when they were meant to be in ours. Insults were thrown at our guide even though it wasn't his fault), the trip commenced. We drove through the barren countryside, seeing numerous other coaches driving in the same direction.


The buses would stop at specified areas along the road, vomit out their contents, the tourists would make like the Japanese with their cameras, occassionally going out of their way to do silly poses, and then the buses would suck their contents back in like vaccum cleaners and take off to the next sick bay. (The first photo is of the first stop we had where we were to see vicunas - in the family of llamas & alpacas, but wild and protected. The next photo would be the actual vicunias we saw. We also so lots of alpaca.)

When everyone was herded into a restaurant for a buffet lunch I went off on my own, into the centre of the town to eat alone for a third of the price and a tenth of the tourists.

It was sort of good that I'd elected to stay in a town a little further along than the main group. Only about 4 other people from our bus were headed there too. We were meant to hike for two hours that afternoon but the bridge was closed so we only got to walk for half an hour and visit some hot springs. Fortunately these also only had a fraction of the tourists as the ones in the main town.
(The church was in another town were we stopped where tourists got to pose with birds on their heads. No one that I saw got pooped on. Unfortunately! )











Yes, I saw the Colca Canyon, or at least a part of it. It was big and impressive in parts.

Yes, I saw condors flying. I have to admit, it was much better than when I saw them in the zoólogico in Cusco where the poor things could barely stretch their wings, let alone fly.

However, mostly I just saw tourists.


(The next set of photos are 1 - the agricultural part of the canyon, 2 - Cruz del Condor, where all the tourists dutifully wait until the birds decide to sail around in the air above us. I actually walked away from the crowds a bit so if you look at the top layer, that's were the 100s of people are standing, and 3 - yey! a condor. and 4 - some frozen waterfalls. Last stop for the trip.)