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So after leaving my hostel, it was only a short walk to the Plaza de Armas in Arequipa´s town centre. After admiring it in the morning sunshine for a while, I walked up to the Monastery, and looked around the building, now hundreds of years old. There were some great views of the nearby volcano, El Misti, which towers above the city. It took a while to walk around the labyrinthine network of corridors and chambers, and was nice to see.
I wanted to book myself onto a tour of Colca Canyon for the next day, so checked out some tour agencies. I got chatting to a couple of girls in the seats next to me in the agency, who were booking themselves onto the same tour. We left saying we´d see each other on the tour the next day. A few minutes on, down the street, I bumped into them again. We decided to get lunch together and so I found out a little more about them. Lilliane and Genevieve are from Montreal, Canada, after have taken a bit of time to travel after their studies.
So, for the afternoon, Lilliane and I walked around doing some shopping and buying a few gifts for people back at home. It was Dave´s birthday around 2 weeks from then, so I decided to buy him a present, which would cause no end of problems transporting it home. The details of which I´ll tell you some other time Dave!! Sufficve to say Fed Ex wouldn´t send it, the post office advised me to wrap it, but then advised they wouldn´t send it (after spending 50 Soles doing so), and finally DHL agreed to. Like I said, another time for the specifics!
We also went to one of the museums in town, which housed much pottery from the Inca who used to be in the area, and more significantly, Juanita, a 500 year old mummy found at the top of one of the mountains. Juanita was used as a sacrifice to the gods to appease them. She suffered a blow to her head and was burried in the usual sitting position, knees up, with pottery and gold, silver and bronze ornaments surrounding her.
Volcanic activity on a nearby volcano had melted some of the ice at the top of the mountain, which had revealed previously unseen and unreachable artifacts, such as the grave of Juanita. It was perhaps ironic that the same volcanic activity that had revealed Jaunita´s grave, also caused the Earthquake that tumbled her and her contents further down the mountain. The scientists were able to return Juanita to Arequipa for tests and unwrapping, and so now, held in a chamber for the public to see, Juanita remains at -20 degrees Celsius, sat in the same position, hair, bones and clothes intact.
The next day I was picked up early from my hostel, around 8am, to go to Colca Canyon. I already knew Lilliane and Genevieve, and soon met the rest of our tour group. There was René from Holland, and Stefan and Julie from Montreal, of note.
Along the way we stopped at a number of areas where wildlife flourished, seeing vicuñas, llamas, ducks, flamingoes and birds. The guide also pointed out many volcanoes in the distance, some of them smoking.
The evening, we had some time to ourselves before going to the hot springs for a bathe and to chill out. So, Lilliane, Genevieve and I went for a walk around the local market before meeting up with the others to go to the springs. The site was different from the hot springs in San Pedro, and were more in ther swimming bath style, accommodating up to 50 people per bath at a time. The others were more intimate and made to feel like natural hot springs, as if discovering them for the first time. Not to take anything away from these ones, as the 40 degree water sourced at the volcano, helping to alleviate various aches and pains suffered in the past few days.
When we got back to town, we all went for a meal together where other tour groups had congregated, in anticipation of the local folk dancing that would take place. It was always very symbolic and the second dance required audience participation. Being second in from the table and against the back wall, surely I would not be asked to dance in front of everyone? Well, I was, as they lady approached my table and looked directly at me, I tried to old technique of turning away and pretending not to see her, looking past her in a number of directions. I was sure it was going to work, but no, jeered on by the rest of the table, I gave in and got up there. It involved me dancing with the woman in a very basic way, a switch of places and then she asked me to lie down on the ground. Knowing what was coming next as I´d seen her do it to the local guy she was dancing with at the start, she stood over me and proceeded to whip my legs with some kind of knot on the end of a rope. This bizarre S&M influenced dance ended with her walking further up my body (not on my body) and revealing the underneath of her dress. There were only more underskirts, but to the audience, I suppose it looked more saucy. Once I had survived this Peruvian expression of relationship, I was invited to reurn to my seat, clapped home by my fellow tourers. The guy next to me was later asked to perform in a type of conga line with many of the other diners. After, they played some music similar to salsa, and the maiden who´d whipped me earlier, wanted me to dance with her again. Accepting, we danced for quite some time, as the song took a long time to stop, and I used some of the moves I could remember from salsa. I received a round of applause at the end from my table and sat down to catch my breath. It´s much harder dancing at 4,000 metres than back home you know! Later, the same woman, Mercedez, came back in her normal clothes and asked me to dance again. I obliged and chatted during the dance in some basic Spanish, but soon, it was time to go.
The next morning we woke up early, ready to go and see the condors in Colca Canyon. First, we stopped off at a couple of villages but this time I watched my step, careful not to fall into the tourist trap a second time. However, at these villages, they had captured various birds and asked for money for tourists to have pictures taken with them. The birds sat awkwardly, as it was explained to us that one of them had been with them for some years now. Oh, he knew how to do the various tricks, when they hat was placed on the tourists head, he was walk their arm and sit on the hat. It made me somewhat angry to see this idiotic German guy pose in ridiculous ways, while this beautiful bird was restrained and made to perform. Other types of wonderful looking eagles and hawks had been captured, one of them leashed out of the way of everyone, to the side of a building. I wanted to unhook their bonds and release them but what good would it do? I´m not changing their attitude by doing this, and they´ll only capture another. While the tourists will pay for their pictures to be taken, more will be captured and can not fly free as nature intended.
In the UK, the RSPCA and police would be onto them, but this is a different society, and what is right? On a larger scale, with this as only one example, is it right for us to impose our laws and ethics on this developing country, to teach them what is right and what is wrong? Where do you draw the line? For a while on the drive up to Condor Cross, I chatted to some in the bus about this, it was just so sad to see them like that.
At Condor Cross, we were told the best time to see condors is early in the morning, or mid afternoon. We were there around 8 to 9am and saw around 10 condors. It was a fantastic experience. The condors and other birds of prey living in the cliffs of the world´s second biggest canyon would fly only a few metres away from you. It was amazing to see them swoop from on high and glide past your eye level, near the cliff face. I took so many photos and videos, as they flew above me and off into the direction of the sun, shining gloriously in the morning sky. At times, there were 10 condors and more other birds flying above us, circling and swooping in front of us. It´s a big tourist area, and there were perhaps a couple of hundred people at teh various viewing points, but it didn´t detract from the spectacle.
Later, we were driven to a point where we could walk for an hour, along the side of the Canyon, and the guide explained about the various waildlife, flowers and fauna growing there. He explained the world´s tallest canyon is elsewhere in Peru, Colca Canyon is second, and the Grand Canyon is third. It was vast and impressive to the bottom of the canyon, where a river flowed.
On arrival back in Arequipa, I booked myself onto a rafting trip for the next day. I had never done rafting before but thought it would be a laugh, which had been suggested by the girls. At the site of the rafting, Rio Chilli, just near Arequipa, we got our gear on and climbed into the rafts. The hour and a half felt like 20 minutes as it was exhilerating and loads of fun! We rafted through rapids from Class 2 to 4, all the while fighting to stay in the boat. At one point, while I was riding up front, the girl next to me began to fall in as we hit a rock. I reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her back to the relative safety of the boat. The rocks below her didn´t look too inviting, so we pressed on along the river to our first rest point. We walked the next bit, as the guides said the rocks there wre too treacherous to manoeuvre through. After a quick break for water and a chocolate bar, we were back on our way, at one point, assuming the lying back brace position as our raft fell over a 2 metre drop. It was a tiring journey after so much adrenalin-inducing activity but well worth it!
That night I arranged to meet René from the Colca Canyon trip for dinner, as we organised travelling together the next day to Nazca.
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