My trip to Cabanaconde on the rim of the Cola Canyon began last Saturday Morning when I made a six hour bus journey to the quaint and at the time, misty village perched some two hours above the canyon basin.
That night I fuelled myself with Alpaca (llama) steak in preparation for the next days hike. This kicked off at 7.30AM and continued until around 10AM after a fairly leisurely walk down into the canyon. There I found ´Oasis Paradise´ and a swimming pool to cool off in. Unfortuntately there was no cable TV to be seen so I missed live coverage of the Carling Cup Final. I wasn´t to despondent though. After a couple of hours bathing in the sun, I made the return climb, surprisingly in quicker time than my initial decent although it did take it out of me and towards the end of it, I was literally tripping over myself with exhaustion. Doing it in the midday sun probably didn´t help things and the thirty or so climbers I saw coming up in the morning presumably implied this was the best time of day to attempt this sort of feat. Whatever, I made it and worked out how to use the shower which thundered down on me like a wet storm sent from heaven.
Refreshed, I had a filling lunch then had one final journey to another viewpoint beyond some farmers fields where I sat and contemplated life and my five months of travel. Got a bit nippy though so I headed back to base camp. Obviously I was shattered so I had a few hours kip then a coffee and sandwich before bed.
Like all those working back home, I too had to get up early on Monday but my rush hour would be made up of a swarm of condors, not cars. Like an early bird myself, I was alive and kicking at 6AM and by 7.30mAM I had arrived at Cruz del Condor, a viewpoint at the summit of the canyons deepest point, waiting for the show to unfold. Some thirty minutes later, it did, with the around twenty condors rising on the morning thermals and circling over our heads, at times almost within striking distance. At this stage there were about ten tourists lucky enough to witness the spectacle but when the numbers swelled to something near a hundred and fifty, there was but one condor in circulation. Inside I was crumbling heap of hysterical laughter. On the outside, I think I just oozed a sense of smugness. (Pictures will arrive sometime soon...)
At 10AM I caught the bus back in the direction of Arequipa and for the first hours of the ride, I was afforded the privelage of sitting on the bus dashboard as the vehicle was jam-packed with eager-to-travel Peruvians. After the town of Chivay though, they dispersed and I claimed my window seat for the rest of the journey.
Back in Arequipa I bought my bus ticket to Cuzco and a few hours later I was making use of it.
The journey was the best in some time, with a hostess to welcome us aboard, in-journey snacks and blankets to keep us warm for when the early hours arrived.
Yeterday I arrived in the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco a little dazed but awoken by the vast areas that had been affected by recent flooding in the area. Whole villages were under mirky brown water with some homes either completely destroyed or half way to becoming a flattened atlantis.
With a full day ahead of me, I set about ticking off some of the attractions in the city. In my whistle-stop tour I tackled religion in a big way, visiting the cathedral and the churches of San Blas and Santo Domingo. My wallet felt the impact of this and I was initially disheartened to discover photography wasn´t permitted in any of the buildings but I was stealthy and managed to capture a few shots of some of the amazing interiors of these elaborate tourist traps. The pick of the punch was the incredibly detailed carvings in the pulpit of San Blas and the gold-leaf altar wasn´t bad either. At Santo Domingo, this was of particular interest as the majority of the base was originally an Incan temple at the cheeky Spanish invadors just built their church on top of it.
With much of the Sacred Valley only available on the purchase of a tourist pass and Machu Picchu out of bounds, I decided against visiting the former. Slightly absurd you may think, what with me being out here but I have plans to visit the depths of the Amazon in the coming days/weeks and my time here in the Americas is slowly ebbing away. It´s a matter of priorities my dear.
After following in the footsteps of a lost civilisation, I found my way to the bus station where I booked a ticket for tonights thirteen hour trip to Nazca. Maybe I´ll fly over the lines there, maybe I won´t. Last week one of the planes went down killing all six tourists and the pilot, so this excursion has now taken on a higher level of interest, as I´m in need of a little adrenaline.
For supper I had my first pizza in a while which was featured some caramelised onions. On leaving, an American man remarked while looking at the menu, ¨How the hell did pizza make it to a country like this?¨ Guessing the Americans brought it.
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