The Adventurist: aventura de peru. dia 15.

Its been awhile. The last week and a half has been pretty nuts.

I said goodbye to Paracas

Demon-eyed blondies behind the bar...farewell party with my Dutch girls.

and took a 13 hour bus ride to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru, behind Lima. I was sitting on the upper level of the bus in the front row, which was cool because I was surrounded by windows and had VIP views of the coast, which was honestly magical come sunset (when we were actually driving by the coast) but mid-day whilst riding through the deserty brown-ness, with the sun glaring in at me as if I were some plump and juicy pig needing to be roasted, yeah that was rather uncomfortable. And that is precisely what happened. Picture me and my roasted piggy-ness trying to get comfortable while the Peruvian gentleman beside me tries in vain to watch the Spanish version of that sci-fi movie with Will Smith and his kid. Woe is me.

We arrive in Arequipa about midnight and I catch a taxi to my hostel where I literally roll around in my bed for 2 hours before its time to rise and attempt to shine for my Colca Canyon trek.

A little background on the Colca Canyon...its supposedly the second deepest canyon in the world, behind the Cotahuasi Canyon, which is also in Peru...but after some recent measurements, it turns out Colca is deeper...Cotahuasi is 3,354 meters (11,001 feet) and Colca is 3,501 meters (11,488 feet).

So with that said, I climbed in and out of that shit in 2 days, without acclimating, with a heinous cold!

Let me tell you about it.

We were picked up by our lovely guide Marcos at 3:30 am and proceeded to drive 3 hours to Chivay where we had breakfast...bread and eggs...standard for Peru...I´ve had it every morning I´ve been here. From Chivay we head to Cruz del Condor to peep some giant birds. We learned how to tell the difference between males and females and that condors mate for life. Marcos made a joke that when the mate dies, the other commits suicide, maybe not so true, but I enjoy learning about animals that are faithful.

Juvenile condor.

All the peeps taking pics of the birds. Myself included.

From Cruz del Condor we head to the beginning of our trek where we learn about the various villages in the canyon and Marcos gives us the run-down of our agenda for the next 2 days. While he is sharing about the villages (ranging in population from 60 to 100 people) he shares about the tiny trails zig-zagging up from the towns- alpaca and llama trails. Someone in our group asks if you can milk the llamas and alpacas. Marcos responds, “Oh no, only the cows...and the guinea pigs.” As you can see, Marcos is a jokester. (Mid-way through our first day, I ask Marcos if his name is Marco or Marcos, because I can´t quite tell...he replies, “ Marcooossss Jackson” and then attempts to moonwalk and almost lands in the irrigation channel running along the trail.

We proceed to hike all the way down into the canyon...approximately 2000 meters in elevation change over the course of 12 kilometers. By the last kilometer my knees are toast and my toenails feel like theyre going to fall off. Not to mention my nose is leaking all over the place as Ive come down with a terrible cold, and the screaming in my lungs everytime I try to take a deep breath is over-whelming.

Once we get to the very bottom, we cross the river via this big awesome bridge and then its time for lunch. Lomo saltado, rice, and french fries. Every meal I´ve eaten here has been served with rice and french fries. White rice and what appears to be russet potatoes. Quinoa and sweet potatoes are big here but I´ve yet to find them. And turns out the lomo in this dish was ALPACA! I ate alpaca. Yup, I did.

After lunch, Dwight aka Whitey, whos actually quite brown, offers to carry my pack the remainder of the trek. My knight in shining armor!

I casually oblige.

My knight is there with the teal green pack.

We make it down to Sangalle, aka the oasis,

Yeah, we hiked all the way down into that ish.

Here´s a slightly better view.

at sundown, take a quick dip in the pool and then get ready for bed. During the first 5 minutes we are in this place, my bed breaks and someone finds a scorpion in the bathroom (although I dont know how valid the scorpion sighting is considering it came from High Maintenance Boy...an American fella who chucked a tanty ((an Aussie expression I learned that means to throw a tantrum)) when there was avocado in his lunch. Marcos had asked previously if there were any dietary restrictions amongst the group and no one said anything...so maybe he just saw an over-sized roach). Scorpion makes things more fun though.

I take a quick nap before dinner and wake up to a boat load of pasta. I shove it all down and head back to bed as we have a 4 am wake up call.

Throughout the night I wake up several times with leaky face syndrome. My eyes are secreting this goopy shit and my nose is a faucet. Oh, how I love being sick. Especially when I have to climb 1,200 meters out of this canyon at 4:30 in the morning.

And then its 4 am and were psyching ourselves up for the nuttiness that´s ahead. Of course, I could just pay 80 soles to ride a donkey back up but that´s for pansies.

Slow and steady, for a solid 3 ½ hours, I walked. Up. And up. And up. I can honestly say that was the hardest thing I´ve ever done, and I´ve run 17 marathons. Minus the elevation and the sickness I think I could have been just fine...but as it was, I´ve never faced a more mentally trying time. There were times I thought I was going to fall over the edge from sheer exhaustion. And other times I thought my lungs were going to explode. But I did it.

Making it to the top was rather anti-climactic as I had gotten separated from my group since we were all trekking at different paces.

This is where it gets good.

So here I am in this tiny town, Cabanaconde, alone with mediocre Spanish-speaking abilities. It´s about 8am and kids are walking to school, people are heading to work, and here I am, giant white girl wandering amongst these tiny brown Peruvians.

Shit. Shit. What do I do?

So I start walking toward the edge of town thinking that´s where my group will rendezvous, and I come upon two English girls backpacking in. They help me find the main square, saved my life in fact. And I waited there in hopes that my guide, Marcos Jackson would be there, and through my trials and tribulations, he was.

I knew that had I not been able to find my group, I could have made it back to my hostel in Arequipa, but my main concern was that the group would spend their valuable time looking for me.

But my worries were all for naught my friends. Marcos saved me!

After a delicious breakfast of, you guessed it, bread and eggs, we head out for the rest of our tour through the Colca Canyon (via bus mind you). Oh, and did any of you catch that we hiked 1,200 meters straight up without having eaten anything. Yeah, awesome. I bought a banana and some oreos from the bar the night before though. Breakfast of champions!

Throughout the rest of the day we saw some Pre-Inca ruins:

I bought some souvenirs, attempted to barter and failed, went to the hot springs (of which High Maintenance Boy would´t partake in due to fear of disease). I had an eagle on my head:

and we frolicked with some alpacas:

Also, highlight...while driving through an indigenous village of Peru what song should come on the radio but #Selfie. I almost died laughing. Classic. These people have no running water or electricity but should they happen upon a radio somewhere they´re getting their dose of pop culture.

Towards the end of our tour we stopped for lunch in Chivay. Let´s just say Peruvian buffet=several unknown foods consumed=instant bubble guts. As I was walking down the line for the third time, my crush decides to walk down the other side.

Yes, I´ve found myself a crush here. He´s Belgian. And his name is Wauter (like Walter I suppose). I asked if I could call him Wow. He wasn´t into it. Anyway, he´s tall and handsome, remarkably fit...he sped past me on our hike out of the canyon...I had previously met him in Paracas so it was nice to run into him again.

So when we met in the middle of the buffet line, me with my bubble guts and leaky face, him in his post workout glow, he decides to bestow some advice upon me...¨get some rest. You´re never gonna get well if you don´t sleep.¨

Thanks Wow, but I got shit to do here.

From Chivay we head back to Arequipa where I grab a quick headache inducing shower due to its coldness, and then grab my overnight bus to Cusco.

All the while I´m thinking about how I´m going to crash so quick due to my outrageous exhaustion. Yeah, not so much.

I ate some food...the buses feed you well here, and listened to the instrumental version of Oh Holy Night over the speakers and then put my eye mask on...well first I blew up my inflatable neck pillow and put my ear plugs in, then the eye mask, now who´s high maintenance? All of my attempts to block out the world around me failed miserably. Here´s why:
-My nose is leaking and my bowels are unhappy
-My seat is near the bathroom so I can hear the constant going´s on of said bathroom
-The shocks on this bus are non-existent
-Buses like to overtake slower traffic and then slam the brakes when they can´t make it
-The ghost in the bathroom won´t stop throwing the toilet seat up and down

Literally the most miserable 10 hours of my life.

But I made it.

Slept for a bit at my new hostel and then woke up to find Miren and Kelsey here, the girls I went sand-boarding with.

We caught up for a bit and I convinced Miren to go bungee jumping with me.

We jumped the highest bungee in South America at 122 meters and it was pretty damn great. But we could´t possibly do the jump without preparing for the plunge with some intense stretching as seen here:

Also, after me making a joke about my gorda-ness (weighing in at a lofty 80 kilos) the young man harnessing me in for the jump proceeded to tell me I was beautiful and suggested we go dancing later. He was over a foot shorter than me, spitting game whilst pulling my harness tight around my thighs. I was amused.

The day after jumping I went rafting down the Urubamba River and also caught some zip lines. My guide Roger was simply the best. Quite the sense of humor. He made the whole experience 10 times better.