I underestimated the climate here. I knew it would be chilly but last night I was basically wearing a third of my suitcase :P It's winter down here and even though it's sunny and 70 during the day, the temp can drop a good 40 degrees at night. Alpaca scarves and hats to the rescue!
We woke up at 730 this morning to catch our van for the Colca Canyon Tour (with the aptly named Colca Tours--recommended). Our first stop: to pick up some Coca sweets to help with the altitude. Despite the sweets and prescription meds, my brothers's girlfriend still had a bad case of altitude sickness during the bumpy ride
boo-- headache, vision impairment, numbness in limbs, nausea, etc. I'm really grateful that the only effect I feel is occasional shortness of breath! Our tourguide, who looks like (but does not act like) a Peruvian Sarah Palin, was very good about helping her feel better.
During the tour, we stopped at several locations to admire the natural formations and to take too many pictures groups of vicunas, llamas and alpacas. I guess theyre not considered that exciting but I love these animals! They are so funny looking in an adorable way. Especially baby ones
These are vicunas, which look part deer and part llama. They were nearing extinction before becoming protected. Thus these are all wild, in contrast to the domesticated llamas and alpacas we saw a few miles later.
The van slowly wound its way higher and higher, reaching a peak of about 14000 ft above sea level at the Mirador of the Andes. It didn't feel like we were that high though, since we could not see all the way down from where we were. From this point we could see many volcanoes: Misti, Chachani, Sabancaya, Ubinas, Mismi, Hualca Hualca, and Ampato. I commented that volcanos are like the earth's pimples. But much prettier. A lot of these locations also naturally had vendors selling alpaca scarves, sweaters, and trinkets. Nice people; no harrassing or haggling.
(I was negligent in taking iPhone pictures for many of these stops because I was too engrossed in taking normal pictures or buying these cute embroidered pouches :/)
From there we wound our way back down, passing by a really pretty view of Chivay and the Inca terraced fields below. Upon arriving in Chivay, I saw that it is a is a tiny town, serving more as a resting point to visit the valley and canyon. After having lunch in Chivay (with delicious fried bananas and chewy alpaca meat), we were dropped of at our little hotel, Pozo del Cielo, which is very cute.
After a short rest, we got back on the van for our final stop of the day: a dip in the hot sulfur springs of la Calera. It basically felt like taking an awesome warm bath but with lots of people o_o The surrounding scenery was nice and altogether it was a good experience.
Tomorrow the tour continues on to Colca Canyon and Puno. Can't wait to see the condors!
-- Mobile post
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