Arequipa to Cusco

We had a day to enjoy Arequipa before getting a 12hour night bus to Cusco. It was a lovely city to ramble around, the central plaza was buzzing with people, including a group of school kids who spotted us sitting on a bench putting on suncream. We were obviously tourists or "Gringos" as the locals call us, their teacher brought them over to talk English to us and have take some pictures. It was pretty embarrassing stuff...

In the afternoon we went to a local museum where you could see and learn about an Incan girl who´d been sacraficed to the gods over 500 years ago atop a 5000 meter mountain. She´d been perfectly preserved in a frozen state and was discovered in the late 90`s and was now on display in the museum. I´m not usually a fan of museums in general but this was very interesting!

Now the journey to Cusco would usually be fairly ordinary, there are plenty of different bus companies to chose from with different prices and standards of buses. However, our trip was to be slightly out of the ordinary. A road block had been erected about 2 hours from Cusco and only 1 cheap bus company were still going - all others had cancelled their services. As we had to be in Cusco to start our Inca trail we had little choice but to put our trust in "Romaliza", the cheapest company there (the 12 hour trip cost about 8.50euro). 

The trip was going fine, the bus was actually fairly comfortable and I managed to grab some sleep, until we were awoken at 4:30am and were told we had to get off the bus. We grabbed our gear and had to walk for just under an hour in the dark past hundreds of trucks across a road block of rocks and burning tyres to reach another bus at the far side that was waiting for us. It was a memorable experience to say the least - I wished Id gotten some pics of it but I was wary of taking my camera out with all the angry protesters at the road block. We put the heads down and walked quickly through and were glad to reach the other side and to finally reach Cusco a few hours later.

Colca Canyon Ascent

We woke at 4am to the sound of Cocks crowing, we did our best to ignore them and got up for breakfast at 6:30 feeling fairly well refreshed. We set off treking along the base of the canyon, passing through several villages with spectacular views all the way.

 

3 hours later we arrived at "The Oasis" - a collection of hostels each with small swimming pools. We had some lunch here and lazed around in the pool for a while before starting off on the uphill climb out of the canyon.

We had heard differing stories about how long this takes, anywhere between 2 and 4 hours. We made good progress for the first 2 hours, but in the last quarter of the hike I ran completely out of energy. It was at this point I learned that Colca Canyon is in fact the deepest canyon in the word, deeper than the Grand Canyon! Combine that with a soaring midday sun and the high altitude and the result was possibly the most difficult physical challenge I´ve ever undertaken. We crawled our way upwards for another 2 hours, stopping every few minutes and eventually reached the top nearly 3.5 hours after we started.

We hit the road back to Arequipa and arrived back about 5 hours later after some interesting dirt roads and night time Peru driving.

Colca Canyon Decent

Our day started early at 7am with our 4x4 being dropped off for us at the hostel and we hit the road straight away to Colca Canyon. Although the trip was only 200kms it took us nearly 6 hours due to the poor roads and the volume of trucks on them. The last section was just a dirt road. We reached over 4000 meters above sea level during the trip and were privy to some spectacular views.

When we finally arrived and started our trek down into the canyon it was after 2pm. The hike down took about 4 hours and it was pretty tough going, going downhill is just as tough as uphill when the terrain is rocky. The views were spectacular and something I´ll never forget.

On our way down we passed various locals who make the trip up and down on a daily basis (one carrying a parrot on her shoulder) plenty of mules carrying supplies to the villages below, we even met a student from one of the villages who was hiking up the canyon, then taking a 7 hour bus to Arequipa to take an exam! To think I used to give out about having to cycle 15mins to UCC in the rain...

When we reached the bottom, after relaxing by the riverside for a short while we headed on to a nearby village where a local family put us up for the night. It was a bit like an unofficial hostel, they have hikers staying with them all the time. They had no electricity but stil managed to cook a fantastic spaghetti bolenese which we ate by candle light. The house looked directly at the canyon wall, it was hard to believe we´d come all the way down it. As there was noth ing to do in the dark and we were nackered, we were all in bed by 9am with alarms set for 6am again the following morning where we´d hike 3 hours along the base of the canyon then 4 hours back up it.

Lima & Arequipa

Arriving in Lima

After 15 hours of flying we finally arrived in Lima at 10pm local time last Sunday night. Our hostel pickup was waiting for us at the airport, it always makes you feel important to see someone holding a sign with your name on it when you come out the arrivals gate, even if this guy looked pretty scruffy and his car was battered Corolla from the early 80´s with no seatbelts or a speedometer. The horn did work though, he barely stopped using it for the whole 30min trip.

We caught up with Kieran, Ciaran and Antonio in the hostel and headed out for a few beers. We were staying in Miraflores which is the nicest part of Lima. When we took a trip around Lima the following day, I realised why people have said there´s nothing much going on there. It´s just a bussling city overlooked by shantytowns (see them in the background below)

While the walk around was enjoyable, we were glad to catch a flight south to Arequipa that night.

Arequipa at Night
This old Spanish colonial city is far more pleasing on the eye. The entrance is very dramatic, the whole city is 2600meters above sea level and the airport is at the highest part. Getting a taxi into the centre was all downhill and gave a fantastic view over the city. Our hostel was right in the centre, just a few blocks up from the main plaza. Peruvian cities all seem to have fantastic plazas and are well looked after.All the stone walls are made from white stone unique to the area and it looks fantastic at night .

 

The adventure begins

Just shutting down the laptop now in work, flying out to London tomorrow and onto Lima on Sunday. So long SolarWinds!