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Okay, I will try to keep this brief as i feel like we have done a ton in the last couple of days.
So we had a 5 hour bus ride to Chivay, realized we didn't have enough money to get us through the next three days and back to Arequipa, so we had our hostess from the hostel translate for us in order to talk the owner of a pizza place into running my credit card for 120 soles and giving me 100 soles because there was only one broken atm in that town and none in any of the pueblos (because you just can't call them towns) for the next three days.
Three hours on a bus the next day and then the start of our 3.5 hour hike down into the canyon. It is a beautiful huge canyon with a very brown river rushing through it. We finally got to the bottom and were met by a young Peru boy who, of course, offered to show us to lodging. Since it was a place we had actually been referred to, we followed. Although about 20 min. into the uphill hike on what barely seemed to be a path through low overhanging plants, i was definitely questioning where i was going to be ending up. But the path all of a sudden opened up and there were several little huts, a dining area and very wecoming mother figure walking toward us. We got hot showers, a hot meal, and after slightly relocating the bed a good, dry night's sleep.
The next day we had an up and down hike of about 4 hours. The highlight for me was that we found an abandoned orchard of sorts off the side of the path about half way through. I went wandering and found us some apples, which happened to be very sour and then a couple of peaches which were very good. At the end of that day, we arrived at what they call the oasis. It kind of looks like you could be in Hawaii with the palm trees. Enjoyed a swim in the natural spring pools just in time for cloud cover and rain. Had a good meal and a good sleep that ended at about 430 the next morning.
That day was almost 5 hours of hiking pretty much straight up. Then an 8 hour bus into Arequipa. We had about three hours to eat, shower, grab gear that we had left there and head to the bus station where we got on a fourteen hour overnight bus ride Northbound.
Got off that bus, hopped a taxi for about 15 min and then a collectivo (think crowded van with racks on the top) for another 45min. We spent the next 2 days in a town called Lunahuana. It is a really small sport adventure town. We walked around a lot the first day, made some friends at the rafting companies, ate, wandered some more etc. The next day we rafted, just the two of us and two guides. The water was moving pretty quickly and was very brown, but we had a blast. Then we headed for a pool that we had found the day before. Sat in lounge chairs, had a couple drinks and lunch and decided we wanted to raft again. So we headed back into town, talked to our friends and arranged to have a sunset run (they took us up a little higher on the river this time as a bonus.) Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and then joined the guides for some dinner.
Yesterday we got up headed to Lima, another 3 hours on a bus, hung out for the day, endured a very noisy hosetel night with little sleep. Up at 430AM this morning to catch a taxi to the airport, a flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina and thats where we are at. We will be here until Wednesday when we fly out to Bariloche, Argentina (Southwest of here) once there we join up with Bio Bio and head to Chile for some more rafting!!!
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Kris Bellino Did you feel the earthquake at all???