Peru - Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

After our horrendous bus ride from Lake Titicaca to Arequipa, marked by me vomiting the whole way and finding out to my horror that the plastic bag I had had a rather large whole in the bottom - boy was I popular on that bus! We arrived into Arequipa, one of the large cities in Peru and possibly the most attractive. Loads of stunning colonial architecture, everything appears to be carved out of a brilliant white stone with small holes in it so it resembles nougat. The highlight is probably the 600 year old convent, not Nik or my usual hang out I´ll grant you, but it is more like a small town than a relgious building. Until 1970s the nuns there lived in total seclusion from the outside world - but the builders who developed the convent over hundreds of years had obviously been to the Greek Island as all the outside walls were painted in very tasteful pastel shades. I was going to have a go in the confessional, but the priest had something planned in a couple of weeks time so I gave it a miss. Once we´d rested up and I´d had my first solid food for 3 days we decided to move on to the Colca Canyon - twice as deep as the Grand and full of Condors. So instead of picking up a tour in Arequipa (with a horrendous 2am departure) we caught the ´local bus´ to the town of Chivay which sits at the eastern entrance to the canyon. After a hilarious haggle to get a hotel room ("how much for a room?" "how much do you want to pay?" "um don´t know" "Ok 70 soles" "no that´s silly" "OK 30" "Right 40" at which we realised we were increasing the price, the Spanish still needs some work), we found a guide to take us on a 3 day trip (the haggling got better this time). Miguel, the guide, a funny bloke of totally indeterminate age - picked us up at 5am (everything starts early here) to catch a bus to the Cruz del Condor (the Beckham´s new son´s full name I believe) to await the arrival of these majestic birds. It seems we had perfect weather for it (ie lots of thermals) as 10 Condors were on patrol that morning - so we spent a very happy 2 hrs watching them soaring and glide above and below us. Our reverie was only slightly spoilt by a group of German tourist comparing the size of their zoom lenses at high volume. From here we began our very steep descent into the canyon - a drop of around 2000 mts - along extremely narrow paths, making sure we got out the way when a donkey train came steaming past us, carrying literally all the supplies that each village in the canyon needed - water, food, toilets, doors, microwave ovens (not sure why cos there was precious little electricity down there) everything. After a very gruelling and knee crunching 3 hrs we got to our lunch stop - never has the veggie soup you get everywhere in Peru tasted quite so good. Unfortunately we´d chosen the tour that was headed for the village of Tapay, this involved getting off my arse again and climbing up the other side of the canyon for another 3 hrs, this hurt...a lot. But Miguel kept my mind off the increasing pain in my knee by talking constantly about football - he was an addict and I did my best to feed his habit with stories of Spur´s magnificent history...no not even he was fooled but he did promise to support Spurs form now on, good lad humouring me, this did get him a decent tip though. Finally we arrived at Tapay, a village of 70 families about as cut off as you can be from the outside world. Despite its small size it can boast a large colonial style church, beautifully manicured plaza and the valley´s best folk dancing team. We stayed in a thatched hut but slept like dogs - we even managed a hot shower thanks to the solar panels at the hostel. The next day was mercifully short and downhill - we strolled across rivers, along irrigation canals, dodged crazy looking dogs but did get ambushed by 2 guys drinking rum at 10am. It was obvious from their manner that I was not allowed to refuse a shot of the rough stuff - funnily enough my knee felt fine afterwards. We ended the day at an 'Oasis' at the bottom of the canyon - which sparked much questioning again by Miguel about the Mancuanian band of the same name - he was simply obsessed with all things English. We collapsed by the pool and chatted to the 1st Gringos we´d seen since the Condor look out. We then did what all good boy scouts do, find wood and burn it. Alas I managed to find wood that was destined to become a hut, shame it would have burned just lovely! So we had a 30 min fire before dinner - by now it was very very dark and after a few (very pricey) beers it was time to retire, at 8pm. Mind you we did have a 4am wake up call to look forward to, as the 3 hr ascent of the canyon is not advisable during the day - it gets far too hot, people get confused and fall off the side. So instead we did it in the pitch dark, following each and every one of Miguel footsteps. It was a tough climb, but once the sun started to light up the canyon it became strangely enjoyable. By the top, we were fit to drop and the breakfast in the town of Cabanaconde was sublime - its amazing the joy a fried egg butty can bring to a man. OK that was rather long, here are some photos if you can´t be arsed to read my ramblings http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stokes_richard2004/my_photos