When we last left you, we were headed to Arequipa and the Colca Canyon. Before heading this way though, we took another dodgy tour (guy in a taxi cab) of some sights, this time an ancent Inca cemetary. All fun and games until our guide, who considered himself a bit of a Carlos Sainz behind the wheel, punctured the fuel tank of his Daewoo on an easy right (into crest - love the Playstation Rally). He did well though to repair the damage by removing the oil filter and using some parts from that before carrying on with his rallying antics on the 30km back to Nazca.
Our visit to Arequipa focussed on a two day tour of the Colca Canyon. This was our first foray to high altitude, venturing to 4,500m (Aoraki Mount Cook is 3,700m) during our travels. The first part of the journey winds through a series of volcanos, with the landscape bearing an uncanny resemblence to the Central Plateau of New Zealand.
Along the journey into the Colca Vally and Colca Canyon, we visited at least a dozen roadside stalls where the locals offer the usual Peruvian selection of scarves, hats, pan pipes and alike. Children are used to good effect in these mini markets, dressed in the local attire and craddling the latest addition to the Alpaca, Llama or Goat population, their role is to invite tourists to take a photo. When in Rome...
After a night of Peruvian entertainment in which Caros participated in the ´Dance of the Poisened Orange´, we garbbed a little shut eye in Peru´s coldest hostal before venturing into the canyon proper. The canyon´s star attraction are Condors which rise 1,500m on a thermal in the canyon between 9am and 10am everyday. While conditions weren´t ideal for generating the thermal due to a lack of sun (GEOG 310 - Climatology), our patience were rewarded at 9.55am when two condors made the ascent. A beautiful sight and well worth the early rise.
Unfotunately, the key souvenir taken away from the Colca Canyon was a nasty flu for Mat. Thankfully, the local pharmacists are licensed to dispense medicine as they see fit, and a couple of horse tranquilizer sized tablets had him in a semi-suitable state for the overnight bus to Cuzco. This bus trip has become our most memorable to date, though one we wish we could soon forget. Lets just say the video entertainment on the cheaper nightbus option was not a Disney Classic featuring some beloved pet, but a movie entitled ´Cannibal Apocalypse 3´. Get it out when you have a chance, especially if you have a passing interest in, nudity, canabilism and beastiality of the pork percuasion (all at the same time surprisingly enough).
We´ve been in the tourist Mecca of Cuzco for 5 nights now. The city is beautiful with fantastic architechture, great restauants and a bountiful assortment of activities in which to partake. Our time has been taken up with tours to local Incan sights, of which there are numerous to choose from. A visit to Olayantambo would probably rank as one of our favourite sights visited in the last week, as would Pisac.
We´ve been in the tourist Mecca of Cuzco for 5 nights now. The city is beautiful with fantastic architechture, great restauants and a bountiful assortment of activities in which to partake. Our time has been taken up with tours to local Incan sights, of which there are numerous to choose from. A visit to Olayantambo would probably rank as one of our favourite sights visited in the last week, as would Pisac.
Both are relatively young ruins, constructed during the time after Jebus (not a spelling mistake - watch the Simpsons) and trashed following the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500´s. Pisac features some pretty impressive terracing of the mountain side to support agriculture, while Olayantambo includes some massive carvings of faces in the mountain side that interplay with the sun during the winter solstice.
We also had a thoroughly enjoyable day on horseback, taking in some smaller Incan ruins. Our guide for this equine excursion was a 12 year old Peruvian boy with more interest in sending text messages than providing instruction to first time riders on handling a horse. Thankfully, we were both at one with our faithful steads, Caroline even partaking in some horse whispering. Caroline´s horse spent the majority of it´s time engaged in some whispering of its own, with flatulent noises accompanying every third trot. Our guide sensed our need to pick up the pace a bit, and gave the call to our harass (google it) of horses to move to a canter. Unfortunatley this lasted only 20 seconds before an American woman in our group of four spazzed out, shouting ´No Rapido, No Rapido´ as she sensed her end. Our run of luck with American tourists continues (cailing in Belize, volcano climbing in Gautemala) - fingers crossed we get a couple in our Inca Trail group.
Anyhow, our next blog will hopefully follow the successful conclusion of our trek along the Inca Trail. Best of luck to Team New Zealand in the hopes of winning the next three races, and hopefully the Bledisloe Cup test loss this morning will be the last time we see Flavell in black. 
1 comment:
Nice horse! reminds me of a joke
A horse walked into a bar and the bar man asked..
"whats with the long face?"
Che Che
Bass
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