Colca Canyon

Sunday


Up at 2 a.m. Waiting in the lobby at 2:30. Picked up by the tour bus shortly thereafter. The right side of the aisle was single seats, but I cant sleep up against the window on my right side because of my piercing, so I switched sides to the 2 seaters. Big mistake. The people that sat next to me were the worst. But I'll get to that later.


We drove about 3 1/2 hours before our first stop. I got some sleep, until we started rising in altitude and my window frosted up, and I was freezing despite my fleece jacket and blanket.


Our first stop was a lookout point with tons of rocks that were stacked in piles all over and a view of all the volcanoes. It looked like you were on the moon. Except that that's probably not what the moon actually looks like. A picture's worth 1,000 words, and since I'm not doing a very good job of describing this:

I think our tour guide, Roger (I think it might be a requirement to change your name to something foreigners can pronounce when you get into the tourism industry here, because Roger, Ray, and Rudy aren't exactly Peruvian names) said that the rocks were stacked for ceremonial or religious reasons, but I'm not sure, because the microphone didn't work well and I could never really understand what he was saying.
Our next stop was in Chivay to purchase our tickets to the canyon. I brought my international student ID, but not my Catolica ID, which cost me 30 soles, because they only give a discount for Peruvian students. Bummer!!
Then we stopped at a place in Chivay for the breakfast that was included as part of our tour. The breakfast consisted of a basket full of bread, some butter, some strawberry jam, and tea. Way to splurge, tour agency.


Next we went to the canyon. It was soooo gorgeous!!!

We went to Cruz del Condor, where the condors show up. Its a huge tourist attraction to watch them fly through the canyon in the morning. We got there at 9 and had 45 minutes before we had to be back on the bus. I looked around, took some pics, and looked at the stuff people were selling until about 9:30 and still no condors. I figured I better go to the bathroom before we had to get on the bus. It was kind of a walk, especially since the return walk was uphill and we were at about 4,000 meters, so I was a little worried that I missed the condors when I got back. Nichole and Sara said that only one came, and it was really far away. So we headed back to the bus, but 15 minutes later, as we were waiting for those who had their watches set to Peruvian Time not Inca Time, the condors came, so we hopped out and watched them. There were only 3 or 4 but at least we can say we saw them.
Next we drove down the road a little ways and went for a little walk with a beautiful view of the canyon. Afterwards we continued back to Chivay with a couple pit stops on the way for bathrooms, and pictures. Gorgeous views!!

You can see all the pre-Incan terraces in the background. It was beautiful.
We stopped in Chivay and had a delicious buffet lunch, then were back on the road.


We made it back to Arequipa, and we had a few hours before we needed to go to the airport, so we walked around the plaza a little bit. Arequipa is a beautiful city. It's called the White City because of the white volcanic stone used to construct most of its buildings. It just looked so much cleaner than Lima. I don't know if its due to smog or dust, but all the buildings in Lima are dirty. Arequipa had a beautiful Plaza de Armas, definitely my favorite out of all that I've seen in Peru, especially with the mountains in the background.

We also stopped in a couple churches that were beautifully decorated. Then we took a cab to the airport. 
And that's where the trouble begin. 


As we were waiting in the "line" to check-in we met this guy that had just finished his 2 years in the Peace Corps in a small town outside Arequipa. He was waiting in line to try to figure out what flight he would be on to Lima, because he was supposed to fly at 4, but a lady died in the plane before take-off. I don't know if it was that that caused the problems, or if it was just a lack of organization at the Arequipa airport. 
First of all, Peruvians don't know how to stand in line. This may stem from elementary school, since I've noticed that my kids are never told to line up for anything, which I think is a good skill to be taught to children. There were 2 lines that sort of merged in a disorderly fashion at the front. Everyone was trying to sneakily cut to the front since the lines were moving so slow. But luckily there was a guy in line who was watching people like a hawk and would yell at them whenever they tried to do it. Finally we got to the front and got our tickets. We went to go through security about 20 minutes before our flight was supposed to board and the guy told us we couldn't because our flight wasn't confirmed yet. 
So we waited about 15 minutes until the board said it was confirmed (and delayed half an hour). 
We went through security and entered the terminal. It's a pretty small airport with only 4 gates. And a crappy microphone that made it almost impossible to understand any of the announcements. We waited a long time and they never called us to board. At one point, a huge line formed at gate 1. I don't know why this happened. There was literally nothing to spark it, no announcement, no sign, people just did it.
After they stood there for about 15 minutes, one of the very few airport employees yelled something, not even bothering to use a microphone, and it was like all hell broke loose. People started running to form a second line on the other wall to the same gate. Then he shouted something else and people started literally running to switch lines. Everyone was shouting across the room at each other and pointing to the lines. I don't think anyone really had any idea of what was actually going on. At one point an angry mob formed around the employee and they were shouting at him to talk clearer because no one could understand what he was telling them to do. This was probably about 300 people that were engaging in this chaos. And from what I can assume, 300 people who already had a ticket and a seat assignment and to my knowledge no reason to run anywhere, since the farthest gates in this airport were about 45 seconds away from each other even at a slow stroll. 
Meanwhile, we were sitting in awe of the situation. Finally the people started actually moving out the doors and when we figured out what line we were supposed to be in, we waited until almost everyone was through and very calmly boarded the plane. 
After a pretty expensive taxi ride, it was nice to finally make it back to mi casa.