Day 40 to 43: The beautiful city of Arequipa
After taking a day or so to just chill in Cusco we caught an overnight bus to Arequipa. Arequipa is a beautiful city and while still quite touristy it is a whole lot more chilled than Cusco with far less hawkers begging every passing 'gringo' buy anything from a massage to cocaine. In Cusco I dared sit on the grass for a few minutes when a cop came over and told me it was prohibited to sit on the grass so I promptly pointed out the half dozen or so children who had offered me 'marijuana...cocaina' as I had walked by and asked why they chose to police squashed grass blades instead of the drug problem, to which I did not get any response.
In Arequipa we found an awesome little hostel, Hostal Santa Christiana, which has an awesome balcony with a 360 degree view of the city and its surrounding mountains and volcanoes. The hostel owner is just the friendliest and most helpful guy ever and even as I sit here writing this blog he came over with a free cup of coffee I hadn’t even requested.
David, the couch surfer we stayed with in Lima and who we have since met up with in Cusco, put us in contact with a local couch surfer in Arequipa, Rafael, who we spent our first day with taking us to all the top spots around the city while providing us with some valuable and honest advise on the best and cheapest way to explore the surrounding area.
The Arequipa market also tops many of the awesome markets we have been to in Peru. It is clean, chilled and sells just about every fresh produce you could wish for including every type of dog food brand by the cup, dried Llama fetuses to hang outside your front door to fend off evil spirits and Juego de la Rana (juice of the frog), nope not slime from the frog but rather an entire frog in a blender which you get to pick live from the tank (see day 50 below).
The market also played host to Ross's random act of kindness. As we sat sipping a freshly made juice at the juice bar a couple of older cheerful ladies too came to enjoy a juice. So while we bent each others ears with facts about our own countries and languages Ross sneakily paid for their drinks. They only discovered this act once we had walked off and it was so good to peer back to see them smile with surprise as the juice lady told them what had happened. What Ross didn't know was that during our brief conversation we had understood that that day was some kind of religious anniversary for one of the ladies so I'm pretty sure he made their day!
Day 44 to 47: Colca Canyon and the accidental pool party
Rafael had helped us source a good map of the hikes available in the Colca Canyon so we decide to do it without a guide. To start the hike we needed to get to Cabanaconde 5 hours away via Chivay. In order to do the first days hike before nightfall we attempted to catch the 6am bus from Arequipa but as we got to the bus station I discovered I'd left my life at the hostel; my wallet, passport, camera, cell phone, sunglasses, etc so naturally I rushed back and only to find it hiding under the bed sheets I had moved while checking I had not left anything behind!
Unfortunately or rather fortunately while I was looking for my bag the bus tickets so sold out. Ironically, we had told a group of Frenchman that we had met on the Salkantay trail to meet us at the station at 5:30am as we could guide them through the canyon and they were the ones who bought the last tickets by the time I got back!
After discovering the tickets were sold out we bumped into CJ and Kristin who we thought we would never see again after having spent much time with them along the Salkantay trail but we had never swapped contact details. They were heading to Chivay at 8:30am so we joined them with the intention of connecting to Cabanaconde in Chivay. By the time we got to Chivay it would have been too late to catch the next bus to Cabanaconde and hike into the canyon so we decided to spend the day at the local thermal pools and head off first thing in the morning. Just for the hell of it we took a local 3 wheeled mototaxi to get to the thermal baths and landed up having to get out and push it up the hill!
CJ and Kristin later arrived at the pools with a bottle of spirits they had found in town and to our detriment the pools too sold beers and against their own rules served them to us in the pool! We spent 7 hours in the pools finally dragging ourselves out at 9pm so we could go find some dinner in town. The 40 minute walk was awesome because there were no road lights just the light of the stars in the clear sky to merrily lead us back into town.
Naturally the drinks continued to flow at the restaurant which we were lucky to find open at 10am in a one horse town like Chivay where we bumped into one of the very few South African in South America who can like to be on a package tour. So when we finally got back our below budget hostel, which had been reserved for us by a helpful 7 year girl who couldn't even reach the keys when she wanted to show us around and proudly told us that they only had 'aguas frio', we set our alarm with the hope of catching the 4am bus to Cabanaconde.
We awoke at 3:30am with a horrible hangover and just made it to the bus in time but were unpleasantly surprised to find it packed literally to the door yet that wasn't a problem, we were simply wedged in. 3hrs standing on a rickety bus, on a dirt road, rammed fuller than the Northernline from Clapham on a morning growing in temperature by the minute eventually took its toll on us. A few minutes after pulling out of Chivay Ross and I began to regret every sip of beer from the night before as the bus quickly became stuffier and stuffier and we quickly began to feel more and more ill. Ross forced himself a space big enough for him to hit the floor before he passed out as I began to see stars, have my ears go def and just manage to wedge my head into the overhead compartment before I passed out on the German ladies lap below me. All the while Mark further down the isle began to grow more and more panicky about the hypothetical nightmare situation we would be in if the bus had to go flying off the edge of the road.
Fortunately after an hour or so the bus emptied out and we got a much needed seat just in time to prevent us from jumping ship but we were still incredibly grateful to step off the bus at the condor lookout point just outside of Cabanacode. The view into the Colca Canyon and the condors was awesome, a great respite after the bus trip from hell. Once we had viewed the condors in all their splendor we made out way into town where we began our Colca Canyon hike.
The hike was easy, only 3 days with about 3hrs of hiking each day. The 2nd day and night was spent at the bottom of the valley at the beautiful and aptly named Oasis where we enjoyed one of the many pools surrounded by palm trees and of course the magnificent canyon walls.
Day 48 & 49: Chachani hike and altitude sickness
The evening we arrived back in Arequipa from the canyon hike we managed to land a last minute deal with one of the local agents to hike the Chachani volcano but the catch was that we had to leave the following morning.
The hike was only 2 days, the first day we set off in a 4x4 from Arequipa to the base camp at 5300m all of which, except the last 500m or so of accent, was done in the 4x4. The night at base camp was unpleasant to say the least. Once the sun went behind the surrounding mountains the wind picked up and it grew cold rapidly while Jamie, the Australia in our group, had already started to show signs of altitude sickness.
We ate dinner huddled in the guides’ tent and headed off to bed at about 7pm after a hot cup of Coca leaf tea which was supposed to help with altitude sickness. I was sharing a tent with Jamie so after laying in bed shivering and trying to sleep for what felt like an eternity, which is near impossible as it was still early and we had ascended almost 3000m in one day, Jamie's altitude sickness began to set in and had to dive over me and out the tent door to so as not to spray his earlier dinner all over the inside of the tent. Between Jamie, the relentless wind, the cold, the headache that was begging to set in and the pee I really needed to take but didn't because I did not want to climb out over the pile of puke outside the tent and free Willy in the relentless cold I did not get one minute of sleep before the 1am breakfast call.
At 1am we all got up and met in the guides´ tent for cheese rolls and tea. No one had got much sleep what with the altitude and Mark and Ross´s talking as they couldn´t sleep interjected by Jamie’s gut wrenching roars. At 2:30am we finally set off leaving Jamie behind.
About 30 minutes into the hike the mountain took its second victim, Cathy, a French lady who felt that she was too cold and tired to carry on so she headed back to the camp with one of the guides. Only David, the French ladies husband, Mark, Ross and I were left to continue with the remaining guide.
About an hour in still in the pitch dark with a steady gust we hit the first stretch of snow so it was crampon time! We put the crampons on just about loosing a digit to the cold in the process and began the treacherous hike along the snow covered mountainside with the ice pick appropriately posed in our right hand ready to slap into the ice if we began to slip. This hour long section was quite somber, after already having lost a third of the group and with my headache growing worse by the minute I just had to focus my head light on the persons shoes in front of me, keep my breathing calm and plod on one slow step at a time hoping I did not start to feel any worse.
Once we reached the end of the snow section we began to slowly climb Fatima, the peak just in front of Chachani. Halfway up this peak we began to see the sun coming up of the mountain we had now left behind us. Mark and Ross were still feeling fine but David grew weary and had a thumping headache so he headed back with the guide who had come back to join us. I did not feel great at this stage but knew that once we made it over/round Fatima I would see the climb to Chichani and could again reassess. Once we were over Fatima we had another little ice/snow section but I soon saw that our goal was in right. Mark was beginning to feel the altitude in his energy levels and I was finding every step more and more of a challenge to add to the thumping headache which seemed to thump in time to my ever increasing heart rate but Ross seemed to just plod on seemingly unfased by the altitude of almost 6000m.
Once at the base of Chichani we removed our crampons for the second time and were told to leave everything but our cameras behind. We slowly began to climb the last stretch but I steadily fell behind eventually seeing the group disappear over the horizon as I lay slumped on the cold sandy floor gasping for air.
I was so close yet so far but I was determined so I slow started what felt like crawling and clawing my way to the top. Once over the horizon I saw Ross and Mark standing on the top little mound, the only place affording you a 360 view of the area and the official summit of Chachani, but phew I didn't even think I could handle even another 50 cm of ascent. I gave myself a little pep talk and stumbled over almost busting into tears as I reach the summit for one quick picture before making a dash to any other spot that was lower in altitude. The views from the top were absolutely breathtaking and I never thought I could possibly feel that kind of accomplishment after just a 2 day hike but boy was it worth it and man do I have a lot more respect for mountain climbers!
The descent was far quicker taking almost a 3rd of the time getting back at 11:30am and although I was still shattered the incentive of losing altitude fast was enough to get me back to camp. The last thing I felt like was packing up camp when we got but we did it and then spent a welcome hour lying in the sun waiting for the eagerly awaited 4x4 to take us back to Arequipa and more importantly more oxygen!
Day 50: Frog juice and off to Bolivia
Tonight we head to Bolivia a little earlier than expected as there is a festival on Isla del Sol this weekend which is as good reason as any to get to an island sooner rather than later. But before we head off first we must go past the market where one of us will get to drink a Juego de la Rana - see video below.
All the pics can be seen here many of which Ross took.
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