Arequipa

As previously stated after Cusco I travelled to Arequipa which is in the southeastern part of Peru. It is the second largest city of Peru and is located in the Andes Mountains. It is a recluse city of Peru, aloof and distrustful of the power in Lima. Intellectuals and the wealthier citizens of Peru tend to reside in this cty.

The city both looks and feels different than the rest of Peru. Founded in 1540, it was constructed of porous white volcanic stones from the three volcanoes that surround the city. This has led to the nickname la ciudad blanca, or the white city. The three volcanoes, El Misti, Chachani, and Pichu Pichu all are over 6,000 meters and attract outdoor enthusiasts to the city. My attraction to the city was Colca Canyon, and the Colca Valley, a large canyons twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, that offers white water rafting, trekking through the canyon, mountain climbing and repelling.

I arrived early into Arequipa off the night bus. I grabbed a taxi and headed to the hostel that I had previously booked. After being reminded why I will never again stay in a dorm I was excited to find a hostel that offereed 1 bedroom witha private bathroom for an amazing $9.00/night. The private bathroom had bumped the price up from $5-$9... I was more than happy to pay $4 night for a bathroom.. No luxurious amenities, but a bed, shower, toilet with my own roll of toilet paper, and shower were reason for celebration! I even had a tv.... High class

My first real challenge came after I had found breakfast, and already walked I the wrong direction for about 2 hours before I realized I was lost. After finding my way back to the main square (I begrudgingly had to find and consult a map) my flip flops had bit the dust. One was sporting a large gaping mouth that kept catching on the cobblestone streets and trying to throw me into traffic, the other had lost a strap. Fortunately these flip flops had two straps to each shoe, but walking was a serious challenge as I shuffled down the streets. The third challenge to my shoe dilemma was that they were a few years old: I had polished away all tread to a nice slippery surface that was well matched to the worn cobblestone streets. If not catching the mouth, or trying to toe grip the other shoe to stay on my foot, I kept slipping down the streets. I am sure I was quite the sight to see.

Fortunately in Arequipa, the shops seem to be arranged by street. My hostel was on "optic row", the street containing at least 50 eye-glass stores. One next to the other all lined up for 3 blocks, offering the same product. I am not sure how this allows for any of them to stay open, but a communal effort seems to occur.

Fortunately my shuffle step brought me to the shoe district. Sadly I could not find a flip-flop that didn't have some type of glittery flower the size of my head, or was not sporting a 3 inch rubber platform, but I finally found a sandal that would suffice. My challenge unknown a head of me I tried to find a shop girl to get me the other shoe as fortunately it was in my size. Size 35 that is..however in this store all of the shop girls are in civillain clothes, are often trying on shoes themselves, and ignoring most of the customers.. Or at least all the customers that speak english, which was me. I finally convinced someone to help me, and tried to explain that I just wanted to other shoe. I have very limited Spanish skills, but did know how to say " I would like 35" with "this shoe", and "size" thrown in as Englsih. She did not understand and quickly rattled off something at me for the next 5 minutes to me in Spanish, me staring blankly back, and occasionally just trying to point at the shoe. I was finally able to squeeze in "I don't speak Spanish"- in spanish, to which she replied to me for another 5 minutes in Spanish. I continued to stare blankly and smile weakly again pointing to the shoe in my hand. I began pantomiming the other shoe and then pointing to the shoe size and saying "sí trienta y cinco"... This went on for about another 5 minutes us talking over one another until she exasperately grabbed the shoe from me and went and got the left shoe too. I quickly paid before any more conversation could occur and had a new pair of shoes! Only took me 50 minutes.

The rest of the day was spent finding a tour into Colca Canyon for the next morning.

Colca Canyon and Colca Valley are home to the Andean Condor, the largest birds in the world, which host 12 ft wingspans. Although these birds are one of the main attractions to the valley for tourists not interested in partaking in the adventure aspect, there is so much more to the canyon. Snow capped mountains and volcanoes each reaching up 6000 meters into the sky, artistically terraced argricultural slopes, narrow plummeting gorges, desert landscapes, rocky scrub hills, raging rivers, and remote traditional villages scattered throughout each terrain make up this vast region.

The Río Colca river, comes down from the glaciers at the mountain tops, and is the beginning of the Amazon River. This rivers cuts through the Canyon, over 3,400m (11,150ft) deep, through a volcanic mountain range more than 100km (62miles) long.

We started our journey driving an hour and a half out of Arequipa, and into a national reserve that is home to the three native South American Camels. The vicuña, alpaca, and llama are considered South American Camels. There were plenty to see and after stopping off on the side of the road at our first sighting, we realized these animals would become familiar faces over the next 2 days. Next we ventured off the typical trail to hike into see the Huayllay Stone Forest, similar to Hoodoos found in Alberta or Utah. Over 70 million years old these strange rock formations look like stone trees sprouting from the ground. High iron content in the soil cause the stone forest to have a ruddy orange color, but the surrounding land is a grayish white dusty rock, caused by a volcanic eruption in the area in 1994.

Next we traveled up into the mountains which lead into the valley, arriving at the highest point approximately 4,800 meters. Here the land is covered in loose jagged stones, and low thorny scrub. The local villagers hike to this point once a year to perform animal sacrifices, and make offerings to the mountain gods. Because the villagers rely so heavily on the mountains they continue to see the mountains as a god. Along with animal sacrifices they take stones and stack them, making little towers, coca leaves pressed beneath the base of the rock towers.

We found a strange plant which looks and feels like a rock, covered in green moss. Instead it is actually a plant that grows 1.2 cm per year and whose branches are so tightly interwoven it only produces short small leaves, and is sturdy enough to stand upon. The plant we inspected was about 6 feet long and 2 feet wide. Our guide estimated its age at about 500 years old.