canyon de colca

So picking up from where I left off, Marco and I arrived in Arequipa that night and made our way to the hostel we'd picked out on the bus from my trusty guidebook. I'm ashamed to say that our first night in Peru we went and ate at a Mexican restaurant. The guilt did slip away pretty fast though when I was tucking into delicious enchiladas after living off a Chilean travelers diet of completos, churrascos and empanadas the last week and a half. The next day we shopped around for a trek to the Colca Canyon finally booking ourselves in for a 2 day excursion that started the next day. In case you wanted to know, Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world being more than twice as deep at the Grand Canyon in the United States. Exciting! That night we went and visited the Santa Catalina Monastry which is over 400 years old.

The Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa in the Plaza de Armas

Inside the Santa Catalina Monastry

We woke up at 3.30am the next morning to get ready for our 4.30am pick up. A knock at the door 5 minutes later informed us that our shuttle was waiting for us downstairs. Thank you to the woman who sold us the tour for telling us the wrong time. Marco who was smart enough to pack his large backpack the night before ran down to try stall them whilst I frantically packed up my stuff. Needless to say by the time I made it downstairs we were not greeted to happy faces. Ugh, we were those people. A couple of hours later we stopped for a very average breakfast then we made our way to the view point 'Cruz del Condor' to try catch a look at some Andean Condors but I didn't see any. Arriving at the entrance it was time to get hiking, so we were split into 2 groups to begin our descent into the heart of the canyon. The views are spectacular the whole way down. You could see the Colca River that runs through the canyon, and the oasis we were going to stay at for the night that is able to stay green all year round due to water that springs from the mountainside. Part way into the trek it was then I got to see my condor. Hoorah. Further along the way we walked through a couple of villages that exist inside the canyon. One of the larger ones even had a primary school and child care center. Upon asking our tour guide more about it she told us that the majority of children that live within the canyon don't end up going to high school once they finish primary because it's too expensive for them to travel outside the canyon or pay school fees which was pretty sad.
Eventually we got to the bottom, but not before missing the rain that had started to fall. Lucky we were in the faster group of the two because the second group arrived a good while after us which must been pretty miserable with the downpour. There was no electricity in the oasis we staying the night at, so we enjoyed a candle lit dinner with some extremely salty pasta and box wine Marco had bought at the village we stopped at for lunch. Good call Marco. The next morning we were off again at 5am, the big incentive being breakfast which wasn't happening until we arrived at the top. A very steep zig-zagging  track led us out of the canyon. Marco, myself and our new Canadian friend Jen wanted out asap so we busted ahead of everyone making it out in 2 hours rather than the 3 we were told it was going to take. And yeah if it sounds like I'm bragging I probably am because it wasn't an easy hike and I definitely felt a sense of achievement I when I made it to the top. What respect I have for the people who live inside the canyon, and who make their livelihood by walking up this miserable track every day with their mules loaded up with drinks/snacks etc. to sell to tourists like us. We were even given the option the night before to pay extra and take a mule back up which some people in our group actually did. It's really such a wake up call to see how other people in the world live their lives. After walking an easy 20 mins more to a small town for breakfast we went and made a visit to some hot springs for some well deserved relaxing. Arriving back in Arequipa there was no stopping though as we had already booked ourselves on an overnight bus that night to Cuzco for the much anticipated part of our Peru trip - the Inca trail & Machu Picchu.

Looking for the Andean Condor

View from the top entering the canyon. The green part in the center is the oasis.

At some point walking down

River Colca

Jen & I taking a break on the walk back up

Finishing at the top!

  

Tour group complete

The pictures just don't do it justice

Cool kids

home sweet home

So it's definitely been more than awhile since I last updated my blog, the obvious give away being that I am writing this at home in Christchurch, New Zealand. So I successfully made it back! There were a couple of close calls that might have taken me down another route to a less ideal outcome but here I am. Last night I was even informed of a conversation that took place while I was away between Dad, Mum & my brother Steve, regarding who was going to go over and get me in the event that something bad happened. I'm not really sure how many scary kidnapping docos had been consumed the prior months....perhaps 'Taken' had screened while I had been away? Regardless Dad was the one delegated in case you wanted to know.

I'm really not trying to make light of potentially dangerous outcomes, but I do think South America gets more of a bad rep than what it deserves. This opinion comes from a girl who came to South America on her own, spent four months adjusting to - then falling in love with her new life in Chile, probably the most economically stable and arguably safest country for women in South America. Who then spent two more months immensely enjoying herself traveling around the rest of the continent. Whether I was joined by a friendly face from Santiago, tagging along with new friends I had made along my journey or downright being alone on my own for more than a few days, I was was the one ultimately responsible for every decision I made whether it turned out to a good or bad one or simply down to plain old luck. I loved it and would do it all again in a heartbeat should I have the chance. I would even go as far as to recommend to the next person to go do this on their own as I think it pushes you and gives you the opportunity to meet so many more people that way. This isn't me pretending that I wasn't ever nervous, scared or a bit lonely at times. Of course I had those moments example number one being the morning I left Santiago. As I looked at my reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator on the way down with my ridiculously large back pack on my small frame I remember thinking to myself  'Aleisha what the hell are you doing?'

For me looking back, a repeated memory that sticks out vividly was when I would initially arrive in a new city. Usually dog-tired from some long-ass bus ride, arriving at yet another dodgy bus station at some absurd time, you'd try give an impression of a gringa not to be taken advantage of (impossible for me) by ignoring the flock of vulture taxi drivers that would descend upon you until you'd got that stupid heavy pack on your back again and some sort of bearing of your where abouts and what you were doing next. Usually a cab did have to be resorted to and it's a feeling I can't describe, of knowing you're completely at someone else's mercy, getting in a car with that person who knows you are carrying absolutely everything that you own on you, and hoping against hope that they are not a bad person and will deliver you safely to where you want to go. Caring if they charged me an outrageous tourist priced taxi fare was last thing on my mind. I have to say those tour books containing the evil taxi driver warnings really do make a girl paranoid.

I would definitely say that living in Santiago for the first four months helped me a lot for when I eventually got backpacking. I wasn't dropped in the deep end by any means as immediately after arriving in Chile I was welcomed into a close knit community of volunteers/instant amigos with the added stability of living in one place while adjusting. What I can't stress enough that benefited me the most while I was traveling was taking the time during my initial four months in Santiago to go to Spanish classes and learn the language (but as if you wouldn't!)  It really made a huge difference to my experience backpacking. Being able to communicate efficiently is way under rated while traveling, it makes life a hell of lot easier and best of all of course gives you the added enjoyment of being able to converse with the locals of the country you're traveling. I enjoyed bantering away to those taxi drivers, gathering hints about best places to visit whilst casually dropping into the conversation my 'friend' that was meeting me at the hostel they were dropping me at (that so-called 'friend' that would be looking for me should I happen to go missing ahem)
Bottom line it actually was a bit of a rude shock for me when I finally got to Brasil and Portuguese was waiting for me.

My mum keeps telling me that she thinks I had a guardian angel on my shoulder during my trip. Along the way I did often feel like luck was on my side that's for sure. I'm not religious but if it was a guardian angel or just some good luck it was definitely found within the people I encountered along the way. Because if I could tell you the biggest impression that was left on me from South America it was from the people I met there. Whether a local or a traveler like me I met some of the most impressionable, good hearted people someone would hope to encounter. The South American people live up to their reputation of being warm, friendly and open. I found the locals, with their curiosity of what had brought you halfway across the world or occasional incredulousness that you were traveling on you're own, were proud of their country and the fact that you were there enjoying exploring it and what it had to offer. The only bitter thing to find was that often they themselves had not had the same opportunities to travel their own or neighboring countries due to their financial means. It does make you feel guilty, and at the same time very lucky to have the chance to do what you're doing.

And then there were the travelers like myself. The best part about these people were that somewhere along the line, they had made the same decision like me to go visit this particular place in the world. So each with the same shared goal to experience South America in all it's glory, at the risk of sounding extremely cheesy we lived each day like it was our last, making good memories like they were going out of fashion because hell, who knew the next time we would be South America again?!

Happy travelers capturing memories the best way - with a jumping photo!

and FYI the next few weeks I hope to catch up on my blog entries from my last six weeks traveling. Here goes trying...