Colca Schmolka

Happy New Year from Arequipa, Peru! According to ¨the grand master plan¨, we should really be on a bus somewhere near Cuzco. Unfortunately, although we had the tickets, the bus was missing, so we´re killing time before theoretically hopping a bus this eve. Cross your fingers!

Arequipa is a pretty city a few hours east of the Pacific Ocean. Too hot for the likes of me, but nice and close to the Colca Canyon, known for its tremendous size and for the condors that swoop through it. We spent a day in Arequipa checking out mummies and convents before heading to the canyon. On our way we topped out at just under 5000m, felt a little woozy, saw a whole bunch of llamas, alpacas and vicunas and honoured the El Misti god (that´s a nasty-looking volcano, FYI) with hand-made inukshuks. I don´t think they call them inukshuks here. I could be wrong. We also saw a motorcyle whiz by with a coffin on the back. Zany.

We hung out in the town of Chivay overnight, sampling alpaca and soaking in the local hot springs. Our guide also took us on a hike through the countryside, regaling us with llama sacrifice yarns and showing us some graves. I wasn´t sure what kind of face I should make in the skull photo. It´s hard to tell but the skulls are deformed - splinted at birth to form the shapes of the local volcanos. They´re very into mountain gods down here.

The next day we headed to the Colca Canyon to watch the condors. These birds have a huge wingspan (3.2m) and look kind of like a vulture. They seemed very interested in the hordes of people watching and seemed keen on buzzing the crowd. This made for much screaming and hysteria. Good times.

Our New Year´s Eve was spent in the main square of Arequipa, eating yet more llama and watching everyone and anyone setting off firecrackers and burning things in effigy. I spent most of the time hiding behind a pillar to avoid losing an eyeball and listening to firecrackers plink off of passing taxis. Also, I ate chocolate cake. Very tasty.

Onwards to Chile!