Perú

I got a bit bored on the bus and wrote a long entry. It's a bit dry as in "we did this and then we did that", but here's pretty much what we've been up to the last few days for those interested...

Perú, Perú, Perú. We traveled the day after I last updated from San Pedro, Chile to Arequipa, Perú; a ride consisting of only about 15 hours of bus travel but for some reason we were unable to find a direct bus from Calama (the largest city to San Pedro) to Arequipa. We rode the 8 hours overnight from Calama to the border town of Arica, Chile. To get from Arica to Tacna, Peru you have to take a collective taxi from the bus station in Arica to Tacna. A guy followed us around when we got to the bus station until he was able to rope us into his office where he sold us the taci and the connecting bus ticket from Tacna to Arequipa for about 24 US. He sat us in his little 90's model Chevy car and told us to wait while he went to find more people to fill the taxi. The parking lot was pretty sketch and it wasn't exactly a comfortable spot to be alone. I must say we weren't exactly sure what we had gotten ourselves into in the beginning though we had read that what we had done was pretty much the standard. We were relieved when a younger Chilean couple cam and got in the car with us. The 2 hour journey went off without any hitches, fortunately, and he dropped us off at the bus station in Tacna with our bus tickets. For some reason we decided not to exchange any of our money in Chile and when we arrived in Tacna there was no power so we couldn't use an ATM and it was a Sunday so we couldn't go to a Cambio leaving us broke by Peruvian currency standards. I had to use the bathroom pretty badly and there was a lady sitting outside charging for its use. I watched her and ran past and used the toilet and then tried to leave but she forced me to stop. I ended up having to concede my sole remaining granola bar as a form of payment. Barter systems suit me anyhow.

The taxi guy charged us a little more than what he paid for the tickets and we ended up getting on an economico bus, meaning it was the cheapest one we could take. We had front row seats both on the bus and for our introduction to Peru. At every small town we stopped at 7 or 8 people would run on the bus shouting and selling everything from avocados to sodas to fried chicken (the chicken venders made sure to point out that their chicken was cold). When the bus started going again it was a mad dash to the front to bang on the door seperating the driver and the passengers in order to try to get off the bus. A few times they just rode to the next town.
After a few chuckles and wondering where the hell we were we finally made it to Arequipa and fond our way to our hostel. We sat around the hostel the rest of the day to rest up and drank coca tea, a very welcome respite. Although we were a little afraid of where we had placed ourselves on the journey we still remained wary of what was going on and were in control (for the most part) of what was happening to us, so mom and dad don't worry. haha.

Our first ful day in Arequipa we walked around for a bit and found the Santa Catalina Monastary. The monastary was built in the 16th century by a wealthy Spanish woman for nuns of rich families. The nuns, once having entered, were never allowed to exit and had to follow strict rules such as only cutting and washing their hair 7 times a year. There were once hundreds living within the walls but now the number has dwindled to about 30. The monastary resembles a small city with is narrow streets and housing complexes and tons of rooms. The monastary's walls were painted in bright blue and red hues following its opening to the public in the 1970's. We spent about an hour and a half in the place finding every room we could possibly find and just doing some straight up exploring; pretty fantastic place.

After the monastary we checked out of our hostel and went to a small hotel that Marc (the guy I've been doing my internship with at CAT Travel) helped work out for us. We then met our guide who gave us a half day city tour including...a trip to the monastary. We were a bit disappointed but we learned a lot more having an informed guide lead us around. Our tour then continued to the main plaza where the cathedral is located. The cathedral has been destroyed several times by earthquakes and then rebuilt. Its not all that impressive but they did have an interesting carving of the devil underneath a pulpit. Odd. We then continued to another smaller church which has 4 huge elaborate golden altars and memorials of Saints. In the back of the cathedral there was an ornately painted domed room. The room is a kaleidascope of different colors and veyr beautiful drawings done by the indians of the area, unfortuntaly we were unable to take pictures and it was pretty breathtaking.

That night, based upon recommendations from our guide, we went to a restaurant that is supposed to serve the best cuy in Arequipa, a very traditional dish of the area. We ordered ourselves some cuy chactado and a beer with a German girl we had randomly ran into that we met in Chile. Cuy would generally be considered a pet in the US but in Peru, as the natives will tell you, ¨Cuy es muyyy rico¨or Guinea pig is very delicious! Haha. Guinea pig. Cuy chactado is the guinea pig whole including the head and the legs. When we ordered our waiter told us that we were very brave and then asked us if we had seen the movie Predator. Not a good sign. The cuy came out whole with its jaws broken apart and its teeth still intact, and supposedly looked like the aliens from Predator. It wasn't the best thing I've ever had, the texture and taste were very similar to chicken only it was much harder to eat. Anyhow, I tried it and now I can add that to my list of odd things I've been adventerous enough to try. The food in Peru is much better than Argentina though, mainly because its spicy.

After our big day we took a tour to Colca Canyon. Colca is the second deepest canyon in the world and is situated in the Peruvian Cordillera. We stayed in a very nice hotel outside of Chivay, Peru called El Refugio. The hotel sits along the Colca river in its own little ravine and was an extremely nice place to take in the beauty of the area and relax. The hotels guide took us that night to the local hotsprings and we sat around for a while and sipped on the national drink of Peru, Pisco Sours (though the Chileans would argue that Pisco Sours are their creation).

The next day we had free to ourselves. In the morning the hotels guide took us to some ruins near the hotel and explained that it had once been a thriving city until the arrival of the Spanish who forced the people out of their homes and burned the city so that they could never return. Some of the tall natural brick houses still stand silouetted against the mountains. The guide explained a lot of the history and pointed out the pre-Incan terraces that were built into the sides of the mountain.

After the tour we walked into Chivay, which was about a 30 minute walk from our hotel. We hung around in town for a bit and had some more Coca tea and bought some souvenirs. The coca leaf is very popular here and people chew it to battle altitude sickness. The tea is pretty tasty and they also make candy and baked goods out of it. The leaves are of course from the same plant as cocaine and are illegal back home. Whatever.

We spent the evening in our hotel reading and writing and preparing for the early tour the next day which began at 630 AM. We met our guide that morning (that morning techinically being this morning) and took the 2 hour drive out to the Cruz del Condor where one can see a huge group of condors flying around. They come out about 830 every morning and disappear about as fast as they appeared to hunt in the mountains. They return everyday mid afternoon. It was pretty cool to see the graceful birds soar effortlessly through the canyon. We then hiked a little bit away from the veiwpoint and saw the deepest par of the canyon which is over 1300 meters deep at its most extreme. We ate some cactus fruit at a nearby stand that tasted a lot like kiwi and then continued on and met another bus to head to Puno which sits on the shores of the great Lake Titicaca which is the highest navigable lake in the world. Titicaca means grey puma in the native language and it is considered a navigable lake because it can host the sailing of huge ships meant to transport goods between the different shores. On the way we saw a pretty cool rock formation and were able to walk through it as well as a bunch of flamingos.

We're in Puno now and we're going tomorrow morning on a 2 day tour of Lake Titicaca which includes a homestay with a family on one of the lake's islands. Should be really interesting.

The computer I'm on is crappy so I can't load photos to facebook but hopefully that'll come soon. Thanks for reading all of that if you actually stuck around... Miss y'all!