Travel Legs

To be completely honest it has taken me a little while to get into the swing of traveling. The first few days I was just going through the motions and not completely enjoying myself. Traveling alone was lonelier than I remembered. My Spanish was not coming out of my mouth easily. I felt out of it and not on top of the whole travel persona. I was lost in my head, thinking about all of the changes that have taken place in my life recently...You get the point. People talk about getting your "sea legs" when you are out at sea for a long time, I have finally gotten my travel legs back. My Spanish is coming a little easier. I feel more confidant negotiating. I almost got robbed but they didn´t get anything because I had thought about where I put myself in advance (take that people trying to get into my backpack! My passport & credit card were in there but you didn´t get it nananana). It feels good.

I have spent much longer in Arequipa than I intended, but its been nice to sort of center myself somewhere after bouncing from place to place to place. I just got back to the city after a 3 day hiking trip in Colca Canyon. If you ever come to Peru you must try to go to Colca, even if you just do the whirlwind one day trip from Arequipa. It is absolutely beautiful. Near the beginning of the canyon it is lush green, terraced landscaped. The land is divided by stone walls and there are sheep, llamas, and cows grazing and fields of corn being farmed by the locals. The women here mostly still wear native dress, though the kids and the men are dressed in western clothing. Colca Canyon is the second deepest in the world (the deepest is also in Peru) which makes me sound more badass than I am when I say I hiked down to the bottom and back. Hiking into the Grand Canyon was much harder. When you hike into Colca Canyon you don´t start at the top of the canyon so its much easier than it sounds like it should´ve been.

There are a number of villages in the canyon that are only reachable on foot or by mule. The first day we hiked down about 3 hours to the town of San Juan something something (clearly I remember). It was a gorgeous oasis of green and flowers and beauty. There we ate lunch and the hiked another 1 or so to the next town, Cosnihrua, where we spent the night in the house of a local family. I should mention who "we" is. There were four people in my group, a swiss-ecuadorian couple (Veronica & Silvan) and a german (Claudia) plus our guide, Lucia. Claudia, Veronica and Silvan had met a few days earlier in Nasca and were fabulous travel companions. Our second day in the canyon we hiked to an oasis, an absolutely stunning little resort deep in the canyon with bungalows, flowers, and pool complete with water features. We lounged the afternoon away until the rains came and then spent the evening playing cards and feeling superior to the hikers doing the 2 day trip as they arrived soaking wet. The rainy season in Peru is interesting. The mornings are typically beautiful, warm, and sunny and you suit up accordingly in shorts and a t-shirt. Around 2 o'clock the clouds start to roll in and the rains come between 3 and 4pm, when you change into pants, a long sleeve shirt, and raincoat and probably a fleece as well. Our last day in canyon started at 5am for a 2.5-3 hour hike up a steep zig zag trail. At the top we were delighted to have eggs accompany the typical bread and jam breakfast. After breakfast we drove to hot springs, which felt amazing, and then ate a buffet of all sorts of local foods.  It was a very wonderful trip.

On the way back to Arequipa I convinced Claudia to travel to Chile with me for the next few days and take Ruta 11 to Parque Nacional Lauca with me and then on to Bolivia without me (I will be heading south). So tomorrow morning I will pick up her up at 6am and to the bus station we will go. Ready travel legs? Cause its on. Chile, here I come!