Ooooh, Aaaah!
Trip Start
Aug 02, 2007
1
12
22
Trip End
Aug 22, 2007
Colca,
Peru
Monday, August 13, 2007
A very early start today; up at 5:30 so that we could make the trip to Colca Canyon and see the condors. Breakfast was pretty basic, and no hot food to help with how cold it was (yeah, mountains and still dark outside = freezing), but coffee helped a bit. Except maybe for poor Ruth, who continued her trend of somehow managing to get only cold or lukewarm water out of the shower even when it was hot for me, whether I went first or not! There had been a lot of talk from the guide about the canyon and the condors, so we were pretty excited to go.
As usual, the guide had planned our trip around a number of stops in various places to help separate us from our small change... The first was especially ridiculous; it was this tiny village about half an hour out from our hotel where some guys in native dress were supposed to be doing traditional dances (in women's dresses). Except that they werenīt. Basically, they were screwing around, laughing and pushing each other, but nice to know they had as much enthusiasm for it as I did. There was an interesting little church though (I guess thatīs true of everywhere here, but still a nice architectural contrast to the States) that we walked through. Another 2 hours in the van up some amazing mountain roads brought us to the place called Condor Cross.
There were already a ton of people there at 8:30 when we arrived, a couple hundred or so, so it was a bit of a challenge finding a spot near the edge of the canyon to get the best view. The guide asked us to meet him again in an hour or so and we went to watch the condors. Amazing birds. You wouldn't think that something that eats carrion could be so beautiful and graceful. OK, the beautiful part may be a bit due to the distance, but from where we were, their colors were beautiful and you couldn't see their likely vulture-like heads. The graceful part was definite though - a 25 to 35 pound bird soaring and gliding though the air, hardly beating it's wings. Really neat. Some flew right over our and the crowd's heads, evoking big gasps and "ooohs" and "aaahs." Hard not to laugh at when you hear everyone doing it, but also hard not to do it yourself when one flew right over. Apparently a universal reaction...
We met up with the guide and the other couple (who were already back before us, but then they seemed to be a little less enthusiastic about everything; makes sense I guess when you're 3 months into a 7 month vacation - I can't imagine my enthusiasm holding out forever either) for a hike along the canyon. While the guide promised us a flat hike the day before... yeah, he lied a bit. But it wasn't that bad, some uphills, but nothing too tiring. The weather was just great, clear blue sky and sunny and warm (or hot, towards the end). After the hike we headed back to the van and towards the hotel. A couple more stops on the way (of course!), but these at least had some entertainment value. At the first, we managed to avoid the trinket and blanket hawkers and got to try two different types of cactus fruits, one sweet and one sour. Both were good, but Ruth and I both liked the sour best. I don't think the others in our group liked either; not adventurous eaters. The second stop was another tiny little village that would have been useless, except! There was a local woman there with these two, huge amazing hawks. I've taken pics with big parrots and macaws and stuff before, but these were real-life, razor-talloned, man-killing hawks!!! Needless, to say, I kept my distance, but got a couple of great pics with an amazing silver-colored hawk on Ruth's arm and head. Very cool. After some confusion, we had lunch back in Chivay (which was mostly blah, but I had a really good dish called aji de gallina - I don't know exactly what it was, but it was sort of like spicy chicken and dumplings and was great) and continued on to the hotel. [Ruth's comment. As I keep telling him...it's a creamy chicken chile dish.]
We napped a bit at the hotel and decided to go to the thermal baths. Being tired physically and a bit tired of the group stuff, we almost talked ourselves out of it (also after our bath experience in Baņos), but we finally decided to go. This time was better; it was nice having the guide with us to show us where and how to do things (you wouldn't think it would be hard to get a towel or locker, etc, but when in foreign lands and not speaking the language, it can be very frustrating) and the baths themselves were nice and clean, if not that hot. Also, they insist you shower at the baths before getting into the baths...except when they say shower, they mean stand under a freezing cold stream of water and that's just not acceptable. (Not that it isn't a good idea for people to be clean, but we had already showered in hot water at the hotel.) Well, I thought the baths weren't hot enough, but Ruth liked it. We soaked for awhile and I do think it helped with some of our aches and pains, even if it left us smelling a bit like rotten eggs. (Sulphur in water = bad). All in all, pretty nice and relaxing. The couple missed out by not joining us.
Dinner was pretty much the same as the other night, not bad. A busy day and a bottle of wine with dinner and we were exhausted and slept well.
(Mike's first and likely last post! [Ruth thinks not.] Enjoy!)
