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Buenos Dias,
We are nursing sore calve muscles after our wonderful three day trek in the Canon de Colca (second deepest canyon in the world although new testing may have revealed it to be the deepest). It was quite breathtaking scenery on a massive scale. It reminded us in some ways of the Austrian Alps and the chance to stay in the small villages we passed through and try such delicacies as cactus fruits and various herbal teas was memorable.
Our first day involved a 3am getup to allow us to get to the viewing point in the Canyon to see Condors gliding within the area. We were lucky to see around 10 of these massive birds and it made the early getup worthwhile. After a quick lunch, we then spent three hours walking downhill (the knees certainly knew they´d had a workout) to the base of the canyon. Our second day was another three hours of fairly easy terrain passing through some villages enroute to an oasis (our second in just a week!). We spent a lovely afternoon there and enjoyed the pool filled with natural spring water on arrival. Our third and final day was a fairly gruelling hike uphill for a couple of hours, starting at 5am!
On the way back to Arequipa, we enjoyed an hour in the hot spring pools (39 degrees C)!
We are now used to the weather here which is beautiful sunny days and freezing cold nights. We expect this will continue for the rest of our time in Peru and into Bolvia.
We enjoyed our time in Arequipa, a beautiful city with white stone builings everywhere. It is the first place in Peru where you are not constantly hassled to buy things on the streets and hire taxi´s. The main tourist attraction in Arequipa is a 400 year old monastry which is literally a city within a city with several streets, squares and a great variety of architecture due to its regular earth quake damage over the centuries.
We are in limbo at the moment until this afternoon as our planned overnight bus to Cusco is probably not able to run due to strike action in Cusco which is peventing any access from the south into the city. It looks like we will have to retrace our steps to Nazca (a lazy eight hour bus ride) tomorrow morning and then take an overnight bus from here to Cusco (thereby approaching from the east!). We are keen to get to Cusco to organise which trek we will follow to Macchu Piccu (and to watch the British Lions Rugby test in an Irish pub on Saturday morning!).
Thanks for the feedback on the blog, keep it coming! We have included some photos of our recent trek in the latest album.
Mal and Nat
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