Our exploration of South America continues to be a success! Our biggest challenge in planning our trip to Peru and Bolivia was transportation. First came the flights. In order to get to our jumping off destination which was Arequipa, Peru, we had to fly into Lima, overnight at a hotel and then continue onto Arequipa in the morning. At the airport in Cartagena, we were stopped at the check-in desk and asked about our departure from Peru. The agent stated that Peru required proof of exit from the country prior to arriving. Since we had just visited Peru in September, we doubted the validity of this news. However, after much ado, I was able to produce a receipt for the bus tour I had purchased for our crossing into Bolivia which seemed to make the agent happy. Sigh. We arrived in Lima late at night and had luckily booked the onsite Wyndham so it was an easy walk out of the gate and into the hotel. The next morning, we caught our short flight to Arequipa and found our hotel which was conveniently located across from our first site to visit, the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. We have visited many monasteries on our trips but this one was unique. The monastery was a small city. Each monk or nun (depending on the point in history), had his or her own living unit like an apartment. Units were different sizes but most had a bedroom, kitchen area and sitting area. We figured out the more the family paid to the church, the better the accommodation. The “kitchens” were built out of rock and had stone, wood-fueled ovens. I think everyone cooking a separate meal for one person would have been a lot of trouble! After the monastery, we walked to the main square and were immediately attacked by the restaurant hawkers. Given we had not eaten since breakfast, we voted on a restaurant that touted a “rooftop” sitting area. Once we had huffed and puffed our way up the stairs, we found the rooftop area to literally have a view of the neighbor’s rooftop. No false advertising there! You will hear much complaining on this trip about altitude. Arequipa is at approximately 8000 feet above sea level so any sort of extended walking or climbing took us twice as long as usual. Heading back down to the non-rooftop area, we found a table on the balcony overlooking the square. I ordered a bowl of soup so if I had a repeat of the altitude sickness from Cusco, soup was a safe choice and I knew what to expect. When my soup arrived, it was a swimming pool of soup! The bowl would have easily fed an entire family of 4 people. Needless to say, we had some leftovers! Due to the fact that it was New Years Eve, many sites in town were closed so we decided to turn in early…until the midnight fireworks began on the square. Happy New Year!
On the first day of the new year, we managed to find two attractions on our list open for business. We grabbed a taxi out to the Molina de Sabandia which was a restored mill. For those of you who do not know, my family were all Millers and we owned a mill in Henry County, GA (Miller’s Mill….very original) so old mills hold a special place in my heart. It was a bit of a ride to the mill and along the way, we had some great views of the huge volcanoes that surround Arequipa. Arequipa has three major volcanoes that loom on the horizon with Misti being the largest at 19,000 feet. Misti lies only 12 miles from the center of Arequipa. While it is considered a “dormant” volcano, the experts seem to have differing opinions and they decided in 2005 that perhaps someone should monitor the volcano for any activity and formulate an evacuation plan for the city. At least the Incas knew to sacrifice some folks and since the last major eruption was in the 1400s, I guess the sacrifices worked! Our trip to the mill was a bit disappointing as most of the renovation had been done on one large rectangular building that mostly contained plagues dedicated to the financiers of the renovation project. We walked into town to grab some helado y queso (cheese ice cream) and our disappointment continued when we discovered the Peruvian helado y queso was nothing like the amazing cheese ice cream we had in Ecuador….sorry, Peru, but Ecuador wins this battle! The battle of the taxis was definitely won by our next taxi adventure. We climbed into a 1982 Ford Fiesta (not kidding!) to find that the driver had “refurbished” the interior using mostly vinyl flooring. Vinyl covered the seats, doors and floorboards. The car travelled at about 30 mph top speed and at every redlight, the driver would turn off the car while we were stopped. In addition to the high fashioned vehicle, the driver listened to preaching on the radio the entire ride. Bill and I both figured out that we should listen to more preaching in Spanish because we could understand most of what he was saying! Jim and Tammy Faye Baker had nothing on this evangelist! For the afternoon, we grabbed another taxi and headed out to a huge rock quarry. The rock quarry was special because the men who worked at the quarry began carving large sculptures into the rock face and then it expanded into a full-blown sculpture exhibit. The rock quarry had originally provided all of the stone for Arequipa. Our taxi out to the quarry was a step above the 1982 Ford Fiesta but we noticed that the car’s VIN number had been etched into every removeable part of the car. Evidently, stealing doors and parts from taxis to refit your own car must be a big deal in Arequipa! The rock quarry was amazing! The road meandered through the quarry and different areas had different sculpted attractions. We had a replica of the Treasury of Petra, several complete nativity scenes and huge animals such as lions, bears, bulls and even frogs. What these men had accomplished were truly works of art. We finished our busy day at a restaurant where we ordered a meat plate for two. The amount of meat that showed up on our table was ridiculous! We ate and ate and ate and still had to get a to go box. Sorry, Ecuador….Peru won the meat plate battle! Our final day in Arequipa, the Basilica Cathedral was finally open so we took a tour and enjoyed the views from the rooftop. We headed over to the museum where “Juanita” the mummy was housed but when we found out that another tour was required, we voted to head back to the hotel and rest because the next day was going to be a long one. Sorry Juanita. Along the way, we chuckled to hear a couple listening to Olivia Newton John’s Physical as if it were a brand-new release. We also enjoyed the Musak throughout Peru which consisted of Pink Floyd and Ozzy Osbourne remixes which were hilarious. You never realize how difficult it is to figure out what a song is until you have to muddle through simpering Musak to get to some semblance of the song’s chorus. We turned it into a guessing game to see who could figure out the song first. The next morning, we joined our bus tour out to Chivay and Colca Canyon. Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world and houses one of my major bucket list items…Condors! Along the way to Chivay, our tour guide spent the first hour of the tour discussing the wonders of coca leaves for altitude sickness. He showed us how to mix the leaves with a flavored gum-like substance, roll the leaves into a wad and shove it in your cheek. Then, we stopped at a store where everyone could purchase the necessary items to make their own coca wad. Bill and I passed on the coca wad and stuck to our altitude pills which seemed to be doing the trick. The altitude discussion was an important one because the Colca Valley sits at 12,000 feet above sea level and one point along the way was at 16,203 feet. Definitely not much oxygen at those levels! In addition to all things coca, we learned about llamas, alpacas and vicunas. Very similar animals but we learned vicunas are the ones who were not domesticated. We drove through a vicuna reserve and saw herds of them. One funny thing….my father has a group of old men that meet several times a week to share the same stories they have been sharing for years. We call them the “Biscuit Bunch” because my cousin always supplied them with ham biscuits. It turns out the vicunas also have a Biscuit Bunch! Each herd of vicuna have only one male. Once the male loses his virility, the female vicunas kick him out and get a new male. But….they do not kill the old male…..he goes off to live in an all male herd until he dies! Vicuna Biscuit Bunch! Our night in Chivay was a quiet one. We managed to order some dinner even though we had to use mostly hand gestures because the young people did not seem to speak our form of gringo Spanish in Chivay. We assumed most of them spoke Quechua. Our hotel was a simple spot that had no hot water, a small space heater and so many blankets on the bed that once you were in, you were not going to move an inch! We rose early the next morning to head to the canyon in search of condors. On the way, the weather was overcast and foggy. Our guide explained that spotting condors during the wet season would be difficult but we would get to see some beautiful scenery…if the weather cleared. As we approached the canyon, the fog and clouds began to lift and the views were incredible! We did a short hike along the cliffs desperately looking for condors. Our guide called over to the main viewing point and told us no condors had been spotted. Just as we were pulling into the viewing point, Bill and I both spotted a condor at the same time! The driver quickly pulled into the parking lot and we all sprang out of the bus, cameras in hand. Just as we were giving up hope, the condors began to fly! Adult condors have a wingspan of 10 feet, 10 inches so they are massive birds. It was difficult to capture the size in my pictures because the canyon was huge as well but they were impressive creatures! After about an hour of viewing, we headed to lunch and just as we pulled out of the valley, the rain started. Our lucky weather card had paid off again! Later, we paid the price for our condor viewing weather because our bus ride from Chivay to Puno was freezing. We kept asking for more heat but our driver did not seem to understand that just because his small, enclosed area was warm did not equate to the rest of the bus being warm. It also did not help that one crazy mask wearing lady on the bus insisted she needed her window open to have “fresh” air. The people behind her finally revolted and made her close the window. You could hear the silent cheering throughout the bus. As we pulled into Puno, Peru, the home city for Lake Titicaca, the weather cleared, we left our tour group, checked into our hotel and prepared for the next phase of our trip. Puno and the crossing into Bolivia coming next week!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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