We arrived late at night into Arequipa, one of Peru’s largest cities, and drove from hostel to hostel until we finally found one that was open and would answer the door (and fortunately had space).
The next day we did two things; book a three day trekking trip to Colca (the world’s deepest canyon) and visit the local market. The market proved to be a colourful experience. In addition to the usual varieties of potato, fruits and corn (yellow, red and black in colour) one half had been made into a gruesome meat market. The floor was covered in blood that made walking around quite slippy and everywhere we looked there were different body parts of different animals dumped on tables, attached to hooks and hanging on strings. Parts ranged from organs like hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs etc to the slightly more disturbing severed llama heads, cow heads (completely skinned apart from their black noses) and llama foetuses (some in a womb others ‘free-range’). The highlight came as we were leaving the market (Elizabeth practically running out) when we saw a stall with a tank of black and green frogs alive and innocently hopping around in a fishtank. A guy walked up to the stall and paid the woman some money, she then picked up a couple of frogs and, dangling them by their legs, threw them into a nearby blender and (as we watched in horror) pressed the “on” button! After some horrific blending and just when we thought things couldn’t get any more disgusting the resulting black puree was poured into a glass and the guy downed it in one!
The next day we woke up at 2:30am to get our bus at 3:00am to the canyon. We drove for a few hours through the mountains at altitude, the air temperature freezing outside, before arriving at the first stop an hour or so after sunrise in the hope of spotting some Condors (the world’s largest bird). The air temperature had warmed up (the sun was now blazing down) and we saw a few Condors soar past, up and down the canyon which was an impressive sight (they look massive and pretty mean, a bit like a giant vulture).
The condor (world's largest bird) at Colca (world's deepest canyon)
After a few more hours driving we stopped at a nearby town and met Alex, our guide as well as Karen and Gerald, a couple travelling around South America from Australia, the five of us being our group for the next few days. We set off on the long trek down into the base of the canyon and walked for about 4-5 hours in what was almost unbearable heat. Stopping every time we had a bit of shade and with our legs shaking from the descent we were happy to reach our first night’s stop, a quirky, small hostel made almost entirely from bamboo and wood and perched on the edge of a steep descent down to a blue-green river of rapids. After soaking in some natural hot springs we ate, had a few beers and chatted to Karen and Gerald. Before going to our ‘room’ (basically a bamboo hut with just a stone bed in the middle of it) I walked a short way from the lights (candles) of the hostel to look at the sky. It looked absolutely amazing, pitch black and filled with stars with the Milky Way a bright purple smudge halfway across the sky.
We woke at sunrise due to the bright light, a nearby cockerel and a tiny lamb that had been making a lot of noise outside Karen and Gerald’s hut all night long. After breakfast we had a tough walk in the baking heat climbing for a few hours then descending. Our hardwork was rewarded however when we arrived at the oasis at the bottom of the canyon which had been turned into a mini resort for the hikers with a couple of turquoise swimming pools and hostels. It was an oasis in the true sense of the word as the canyon and places we had trekked were like the desert, barren and rocky with the main vegetation being cactuses. The oasis was green with tropical trees and plants and there were nearby waterfalls.
We spent the rest of the day by the pool sunbathing and swimming. It was the perfect way to relax after all the hard walking. In the evening we joined forces with a couple of German girls and cooked a barbeque of llama meat as the sun set (llama meat tastes surprisingly nice although I had to tell Elizabeth it was lamb!).
We slept that night in another bamboo/mudhut ‘room’. Not long after we went to bed I heard rustling so grabbing my torch (there was obviously no light switch and it was pitch black outside) I looked and saw an opened Oreo packet on the floor with a long tail sticking out of it. My eyes couldn’t focus properly and I thought it might be a lizard. I wandered over to investigate but whatever it was kept on rustling (eating) inside the packet. As I approached the packet a big mouse popped out and just stared at me. I got closer to scare it and started clapping and making noise but it just looked at me and continued eating. Only when I pretended to kick it did it run straight between my legs and under our stone bed (prompting a sleepless night for Elizabeth).
The final day we got up at 4:45am to walk from the bottom up to the top of the canyon in the morning. It took a few hours and we were all exhausted by the time we made it. We wandered back to the town we started at, had some breakfast and got on the bus. After a stop to swim in some more natural springs on the way back we eventually arrived back in Arequipa, exhausted and aching. Whilst everyone else sensibly headed back to their hostels to sleep Elizabeth and I headed to the bus station to get a 12 hour overnight bus to Cuzco (not something you want to do after three tiring days of trekking) but we had our Inca trail trek to make meaning we had to get to Cuzco the next day!
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