Dear Friends,
The next segment of our trip after the Amazon took us to wildly different parts of Peru: Arequipa in the mountains and Mancora on the Pacific coast.
Arequipa
We flew into Arequipa, a sprawling city of 1.5 million people at 7,550 feet above sea level on Monday, January 13th. We went to the official taxi kiosk to get a ride to our hotel, and, by chance, were assigned to Pablo, a nice young man who spoke English beautifully. (He had spent a summer vacation working in a ski rental place in Vail!). He took us to our hotel and to several other places while we were here.
Our friends Cherie and Austin joined us, and we all stayed at the Casa Arequipa, a quaint older hotel a short walk (uphill) from the Plaza de Armes, the center of the colonial city established in the 1500s.
The main draw of our visit was to see condors fly in Colca Canyon, a 2-mile deep canyon once believed to be the world's deepest (it's now been eclipsed by one in Tibet that is a staggering 11 miles deep). The Colca Canyon is a 3 hour drive from our hotel (read 4 am pick-up) over a pass that is 16,010 feet above sea level.
To say that we had a picture perfect day would be an understatement. The sun rose at 5:30 am on an unmarred blue sky, which stayed with us throughout our excursion. Switch-back after switch-back, up and up we went. Our ears popped.
The top of the pass was at 16,010 feet, higher than any of us had been (outside an airplane). Beside the smoking volcano in the distance, the landscape was littered by cairns, offerings by the countless travelers who had walked over the pass from ancient times, giving thanks for having made it that far and praying for a safe remaining journey.
Then down we drove, switchback after endless switchback, by fields intricately terraced long before the Incas arrived. After a stop for coffee and snacks, we made our way to the Condor Cross, a place where condors often perch.
Our best guess is that we saw 6 juvenile and 4 adult condors, when we would have been thrilled with one. I say guess because you could see them riding the thermals in the distance, weaving their way towards us, flying so close overhead that I had to pull back my 300 mm zoom, than circling up and away, down the canyon or over the ridge going out of sight.
Sooner than we wanted, we started back, eating a fabulous $10 lunch before starting the climb to the pass. On the way we saw llamas and guanacos, both farmed in the higher altitudes. We also saw wild vicuña, which are herded together once a year to be sheared of their warm, outrageously expensive wool.
We were home by 5 pm, completely exhausted. Austin and Cherie bought us each a couple of empanadas, which we ate before falling deeply asleep.
In the morning, we had a goodbye breakfast at our hotel, then packed and waited for "our" driver Pablo to pick us up for our flight back to Lima. From there we took a flight to Talara, the airport closest to our beach hotel in Mancora on the Peruvian coast. We arrived late at night, but hotel staff left sandwiches for us to eat when we got there.
Kichic
We landed in Talara on our flight from Lima at 9:30 pm and were very glad that our hotel had arranged transport for us. The first part of the journey was easy, a single well-paved road, pitch black except for the waning moon and the on-coming lights of large trucks, an occasional town where the road would deteriorate, the poverty of residents on full display.
Finally, after an hour, our driver took a left, surprising us because we thought the coast was on our right. We proceeded down what seemed like an interminable dirt road, slowing almost to a standstill to navigate the dirt ridges and gullies. At one point we passed through a manned gate, where our driver had an extended exchange with the guard. Houses, cafes and small hotels dotted our dirt path.
On and on we went. An occasional tuk-tuk bounced past. Finally (finally), our driver stopped, and we heard the click of blocking door and the pop of the trunk. A security guard appeared, and we walked though the door of a high wall into the reception area of our 9 room hotel. He took pictures of our passports and led us to our room. We fell into bed.
Our hotel is named Kichic, it is just south of Mancora on the Peruvian coast near its border with Ecuador. We do not have an oceanside room, but we can hear the pounding surf from our patio.
We enjoyed a three-night respite from our travels, venturing only as far as the pool, the beach and the restaurant, which served both vegetarian and seafood entrees.
On Sunday, January 19th, we flew back to Lima overnight, before flying on Monday to Quito, Ecuador to meet our Overseas Adventure Travel group. More soon.
Stay well.
Marc
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