Today, one of the hotel workers knocked on everybody’s door to wake us up at 5am, as he’d promised. I rolled out of bed a little past 5:30 when breakfast was served. It didn’t take me long at all to get ready, and I also packed my backpack. I was a bit disappointed to see that our hotel meal was only bread and jam and juice. Kaitlin asked one of the cooks if we could also have eggs. We learned that for 2 soles, we could get some, but unfortunately we had to leave at 6 and had no time to order anything.
Alas, we got in our two respective buses and headed out to the famous Colca Canyon. I was under the impression that the canyon was in our same town, but we had to drive another 2 hours or so to get there. Our tour guide talked to us for a half an hour, then finally let us rest (I was exhausted).
When we got to the canyon at 8, we were told we could stay til 9, when the condors might start waking up and flying. I’ll admit that, at first, I was unimpressed. The canyon was huge but, to us, just looked like many of the cliffy mountains we’d seen. I walked around a bit and took some pictures.
When we saw the other half of our group from the other bus, it was almost 9am. At that point, I saw my first Andean condor. With an average wingspan of 10.5 feet, I knew they’re the world’s biggest birds, but once one was flying above me, I finally understood how huge they really are. Soon enough, tons of condors started circling above; sometimes there were two, but at one point, there were up to probably twelve, if not more. At that point, I thought, Okay, it’s worth it now.
When the masses started flying away, one condor landed on a nearby cliff. We all took pictures of it and anxiously waited for it to fly. Thirty minutes later, I snapped a video of the condor taking off.
 | |
| pointing to the condor... haha |
One more interesting note about the canyon is the huge bees that fly everywhere. I’ve never seen such large stingers; they look like hummingbirds.
We were told that they don’t sting, but that didn’t stop some of us from being scared (and while I usually don’t mind bees, I wasn’t a big fan of this type).
It was time to leave after that (we were allotted some extra time since we saw so many condors. Apparently it’s very rare to even see one, so we got very, very lucky).
We got in the bus to drive the five hours to Arequipa but stopped maybe two hours in to buy some snacks. I barely had any money on me but managed to buy a bag of Doritos and a drink. I needed to find an ATM but spent my last 50 cents to snag these pictures:
Ilana took them for me and told me I was a badass for posing with this guy. I guess I’ll have to take her word for it.
So, after a little break on the road and one rest stop an hour and a half before we hit town, we were finally back in Arequipa. We rented out a hotel room near the main plaza for everybody to store their suitcases. Since we didn’t have a chance to eat a full meal, I was pretty hungry and walked with Kris, Rachel and Alison to get some food. We decided to spend about a half an hour in an internet café since we’d been unable to get internet anywhere the past few days. Later, we walked around and found a good restaurant. Kris ordered a hamburger and fries, while the rest of us ordered a personal pizza and a glass of wine for 13 soles. Normally, when restaurants offer a pizza/drink deal, you can only choose from one or two types of pizza, but here we had a much larger selection. I got the Pizza Italiana, with ham, mushrooms and tomatoes, and a glass of red wine. We were all really surprised with the quality of the food; it was some of the best, if not the best, pizza I’d had on the trip. Oh, and I couldn’t find an ATM in time but paid with my Visa and got cash from everyone else. It was enough money to buy me some snacks afterwards for our long busride back to Cuzco.
We met up at the hotel at 5pm. Since we were told to be there at 6, we wanted to get there before everyone else so we’d have time to change into comfy clothes. However, we didn’t end up leaving until 7 (our bus wasn’t even until 8:30 anyway) because Cara and Kim had been feeling really sick and decided to buy a plane ticket to Cuzco the next day instead. Monica had to make sure that everything was set for them… the hotel for the night and the flight the next day. Her mom will be flying with Cara and Kim for safety measures.
I hung out at the hotel until it was time to leave and listened to how others had spent their afternoon. Some people found a Spongebob Squarepants themed restaurant, the Krusty Krab, and ordered krabby patties. Others just walked around the gorgeous city and found some fabulous food and antique stores. I wish I’d taken some pictures and had more time to explore. Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, but without all the tourism. It has a very European/Spanish feel to it and is simply gorgeous. We all left wanting to stay longer.
So, we took prepaid cabs to the bus station and headed to Cuzco. It was hands down the worst bus experience of my life. While a flight to Cuzco is only about 45 minutes or so, it takes 11 hours to drive because the roads are really, really bad. They became so uncomfortable at one point that some of my classmates got scared and wondered if we were even taking the right route. I tried to sleep, but it was so bumpy and uncomfortable that it was impossible to rest for the longest time. Late in the night, the bus broke down since something happened with one of the tires. We sat still for an hour, not knowing exactly what was going on or when we’d be on our way. Once we started moving again (I believe around 1:30), I was finally able to get some rest. However, I woke up early and only fell back asleep just before we arrived at the station in Cuzco. Turns out some people slept better than I did, but we all had a miserable time and were glad to be done with the trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment