Canyon of the condors....sort of

Thinking we'd not really been up to much lately we decided to do a two day tour of the second biggest canyon in the world. Like ya do. Apparently the main reason for a visit here is to sit at the edge of the canyon and watch condors circle up from the canyon below and over head. Sounded alright, kind of. Really I just wanted to get out and see some more of the country that didn't involve Peruvian/French creperies serving the finest pancake and milkshakes known to man. Hmm. Canyon shmanyon, give me crepes damn it!
Anyway. The small tour bus and our guide would be our company for the next couple of days. The canyon is a couple of hours outside of Arequipa but we make a couple of stops on the way to break up the journey. Just outside of Arequipa the houses are clearly less upmarket. In fact the neighbourhood is very poor. Most places don't have running water or electricity but these people moved here to escape the terrorism of their areas in the previous decade. The land round here is dusty and dry and baron to say the least. This turns out to be profitable in another way further up the road. A huge ugly cement factory produces vast amounts of the stuff for export to the US. It's difficult to see where the profit is going as it's certainly not apparent anywhere nearby.
Up we head into the mountains and we reach our highest point on the road at 4800 metres above sea level. Thankfully by now we are used to the altitude but others, namely 2 Italian brothers, seem to sleep a hell of a lot. Maybe that's just the norm.
We pass open plains with herds of Vicunas trotting around. They kind of look like deer. These animals have the worlds finest hair and therefore most expensive material available for fine garments. Again it seems Peru has various resources that are worldly marketable, tourism definitely another, but where all the money goes is unclear. It does become more apparent as we learn just how corrupt the previous government was, not that it seems the current is vastly better but at least the terrorism has abated.
We are now surrounded by high snow tipped peaks and golden flat plains with the sun beating down. It's beautiful I'll give it that.
We dip down into the town we'll be spending the night, Chivay. It's a small town with next to nothing of interest other than the close proximity to the Colca Canyon. One small square and a church is about the long and short of it. Oh, and an Irish bar. Those things are frickin everywhere! The wind whistles down the streets blowing grit into my eyes so we quickly head to the hotel. Even the most broken down looking dust ridden places can have stunning sunsets and fantastic mountain scenery. I couldn't be further from home.
After settling in at the hotel we meet up with the tour group again for a visit to some nearby hot springs. After visiting New Zealand we knew what to expect, slightly whiffy water, but the views from the outdoor hot spring here were tremendous. It's not a common thing to have a dip in a hot spring opposite mountains and Inca ruins. Invigorating. Life is pretty damn good.
After chatting with a couple of American and South African backgrounds, the two Italian brothers and a Japanese guy we head back to the hotel to prepare for an evening meal including traditional dance and music.
Some decent food and a good Peruvian band made for a good evening, and then out came the dancers. A male and female combo performing different styles of traditional Peruvian moves which on the whole seemed to involve a lot of bouncing and twirling around.
This was fine until the young Peruvian woman went around asking all the men to get up and dance with her. I could sense what was coming. She asked a table full of what looked like Germans and was denied by them all. I knew I'd be put on the spot and after one Italian brother turned her down I felt I had to do the manly thing and get up to dance. As you may or may not know my dancing skills are somewhat offbeat. Yes, I'm crap. I don't even particularly enjoy it either but I just thought of England and got on with it. It turns out that this traditional dance had some nifty moves. The dance sequence went like this. First I let the Peruvian twirl beneath my arm a couple of times, then I pretend to eat some odd fruit given to me whilst bouncing around. I then have to fall to the ground as if I'd been poisoned. Everyone in the restaurant was already highly amused by this and this increased as I next had to pretend to have a fit whilst she whipped me (pretty hard I may add) repeatedly with a thin strip of material with a ball in the end. 'Excellent', I thought. At least I was over my initial embarrassment by this point. To revive me after the whipping she then straddled my face and wafted her skirt back and forth. This seemed to go down very well in the place, fits of laughter abound from our table and pure looks of bemusement from the others. After this the floodgates opened and most people from our table took their turn for a good whipping and wafting. No other table joined in, even when a conga line formed which took us out on the street and back inside. It seemed we had a pretty good group and it was a cracking night. Not too sure about the traditional Peruvian hot booze though, or my dancing skills. But still, worth the money and we hadn't even seen any condors or canyons yet!
Next morning a very early start as it was still a further 2 hours until we reached the canyon. We stopped off at a couple of noteworthy places along the way. The first a small village, not much to that either other than a nice looking but closed church. The main thing that does spring to mind was that a couple of locals had large birds of prey on show, money for photos really. One woman had taken it one step further and decided to wear traditional dress and have the large bird rest on her head. Hilarious I thought. 'And what is it you do for a living?', 'Well, I look after birds and I'm a model.'. Classic.
Further down the road we stopped to look at old pre-Inca burial sites. This were left by the Incas as they respected burial and worship sites of previous civilisations, one major difference between them and the Spanish conquerors. The tombs were small bee-hive looking mounds perched high up on cliff faces. The bodies inside where placed in baskets and tied up, explaining some mummies we'd seen the week before in Cusco bound in a similar way.
Right, the Cruz del condor. The point of the canyon where lots of people sit and wait for condors to come our of their nests within the valley and ride the air thermals up and out of the canyon. Did we see any? Did we bollocks. But then I wasn't that bothered anyway so I can't complain. The canyon was pretty good looking too, nothing mightily spectacular but still a decent sight at 9am of any morning. Further down the road the canyon is 4 times deeper and that's when it's officially the second deepest in the world. Problem is that's another 4 hours away and we weren't going to see it. The deepest canyon in the world is further on still, another 15 hours on rough roads. Our guide told us there's talk of making a decent road so that it can be marketed for tourism. We didn't even see any photos of the deep canyon and considering it's over 4 times deeper than the Grand Canyon in the US it must be some sight. But that's Peru again. It's not over ravaged by commercialism, tourism or a great deal else. There's still plenty of this huge country left to be opened up for the everyman of international travel.
Down in the valley, a 4 hour trek(not that we'll be doing that), are a couple of villages. These people live in almost darkness year round and have much whiter skin than the average Peruvian. From one of these villages a new road had been forged into the cliff opposite where we stood. This could also be seen coming from the opposite direction but not meeting up in the middle. The road would save hours in getting supplies from Chivay and would mean the use of vehicles other than the traditional donkeys to navigate up and down the steep canyon. The road was stopped as concerns grew that it would affect the habitat of the Condors and they may move on, thus affecting the amount of tourists visiting the region. The villagers replied by saying that it made no difference to them whether tourists came or not. Clearly they'd not been informed of the 35 soles ticket that every single tourist has to buy to some here. This money is supposed to go to local communities but they'd never heard a whisper. 35 soles is a lot of dosh to these guys and when you consider how many people come every day here the money must be piling up. But where? Again the politics of the country is holding it back, a shame in many ways but the people still seem happy enough, for now.
We walk along the canyon's edge for a while before heading back to Chivay for lunch and the 4 hour drive back to Arequipa. We stop off on the way to Chivay to take a 'National Geographic' shot. From the same spot a photographer took a shot into the valley overlooking the green terracing used for crop growth, dating back to Pre-Inca times. Again the altitude here and the steepness of the area makes farming difficult so the terracing system makes growth possible. It's a stunning view even if my photos aren't up to the standard of the National Geographic.
Back to the white city of Arequipa!