Amongst an angry earth

From him 

 Peru so far is a real breath of fresh air. People are friendly and speak spanish clearly. Arequipa, where we are now is probably the best city we have visited. Food is cheap and tasty, much to my and more so Missy´s delight and accommodation is cozy. We start our day with coffee and breakfast in our rooftop garden listening to Cheese FM where I pick up helpful tips from Bryan Adams on how to “Love a women”, thanks Bryan for the insight.

3 days ago we left our homely little hostel to trek into the worlds deepest canyon and again we have been treated to some of South Americas incredible scenery. Looking from one side of Canyon De Colca to the other side and down is essentially looking into the deepest gouge on the surface of the earth. 4 kms deep and 120 kms long the “Big” equation comes into play again. 

The trek itself is demanding and whilst navigating your way down the rough and some times perilously narrow tracks you have to prise your self away from your deep concentration to realize the size of the giant hole your descending into. Of course throughout the trek 70 year old woman carrying untold kilo grams on their backs skip nimbly past without a bead of sweat on their forehead, just to remind you what a pansy you actually are. 

We stayed in one of the villages at the bottom of the canyon. After a cold shower by torchlight, a couple of luke warm beers and a feed of rice we settled into romantic little dirt floor room with its bamboo based bed. Missy is really enjoying her 5 star honey moon. 

The following day we were briefly rewarded with a swim in the oasis at the base of the canyon before the menacing climb out. This was hard work. Picture a never ending staircase, but one covered with rocks and loose gravel, and the odd snake. Missy found the best way to deal with these slippery customers was to dance her world famous Irish jig on them which I have to say looked utterly hilarious from where I was standing. (Don’t worry Mary it wasn’t poisonous).  Honestly when I reached the top I was half expecting St Peter to be there asking If I’d been behaving myself. Myself, Adam, and his wife Becky decided to give it a good push. I’m fairly fit, Adam played rugby league for the Newcastle Nights and Becky is no slouch, (she showed us both up in an under water lengths competition in the pool)  and we were all poked. As Eimear put it, the feeling of “being shagged by an elephant” came to mind. 

On our way back to Arequipa we were informed by our guide of the disasters that were currently affecting the region. A massive Earthquake in Chile (see Dave and Pam for first hand accounts) followed by Tsunamis, flooding in Peru, more Earthquakes throughout the continent. I tell you it’s not Bandito’s, muggings or corrupt officials you have to worry about here, it’s mother nature and her sometimes terrifying spontaneity. Just the other week myself and Irish Dave were about 20 meters from a bolt of lightning that struck a street corner. 

It’s pointless worrying about such things and I tend to push them to the back of my mind but I have to admit that on learning about the situation I did feel a little uneasy. Even the breath taking scenery with it’s looming volcanoes and mountains seemed to take on a sinister quality as we drove back to Arequipa. When nature surrounds you on a scale as grand as she doe’s here and decides to get restless, you are reminded that destiny is far from being in your own hands. 

Yesterday we left for another 14 hour bus journey where finally our destination was the coast. All the surf reports look promising and Missy is looking forward to spending some time studying her photography. She hasn’t even done any sunbathing yet and she already looks like she comes from Mirrabooka. 

Adios Amigos 

Love Shaun and Jeddah 

From her 

I love this trip because firstly I’m relaxed (like you wouldn’t believe) and secondly because I love landing is such beautiful countries. 

Peru, what a fabulous country! We arrived about a week ago from Bolivia. As you all know Shaun and I got slightly sick of the Bolivians so we were very happy to finally arrive in Peru. Our first stop was Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city and can I say its main area truly is a beautiful. The old buildings are in such good condition, almost like they are brand new. It’s impressive to say the least. 

After staying in Arequipa for a couple of days Shaun and I organized a trek to the Colca Canyon (3hrs from Arequipa) where we have been for the last 3 days and it was awesome. Surprisingly I use the word ‘awesome’ even though its one of the hardest things I have ever had to do physically. The Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world at 4kms deep and it’s stunning, harsh, but stunning. There are many little villages around the canyon and in order for its people to buy anything, catch a bus, make a phone a call they have to trek through the Canyon to the closest  main town ‘Cabanaconde’. You should see these people when they walk, its like they are Olympic athletes’. They can climb the canyon in 47 minutes. Incredible!!! 

Colca Canyon

 

 

A local climbing up the canyon. Check out her sandles, they are made from old rubber tyres

We had another cracking group for our tour which always helps, Dave and Eimear (from our Amazon tour) and another Aussie couple from Sydney, Bex and Adam. 

3 Aussies, 2 Irishmen and a Kiwi walk up a mountain.

 The first day we walked for about 7 hrs down to the bottom of the Canyon.  It was incredibly hard as the path was made up of sand and loose stone, you had to concentrate constantly. Can you believe it I ran into a snake! Picture this! Im walking down a path and after looking up for a brief second I turn my eyes back to where Im walking to find a 1 metre snake slithering across the path inches away from my feet. My arms end up stretched out either side of me (don’t ask me why) and my knees are turned out and I’m dancing like an Indian screaming – very loudly! It felt like forever I was dodging this snake until it slid off the path. I stopped my little Indian dance and looked up to find Shaun absolutely pissing himself – nice husband! Mind you, I too started laughing, it was too funny. 

As we continued down the path we ran into a donkey lying on the path with dying eyes. The poor thing was grazing on the hill when a bull had attacked him (we could still see the bull on the top of the mountain). Man it broke my heart, this poor old donkey dying with no one to help and his fellow donkey friend licking the blood from it’s leg. In our home we treat our animals like a part of our family, here, an animal is merely an animal, it’s a hard concept to fathom. 

We finally arrived in our first camp, we were all completely knackered. We had dinner and went to bed in our very very basic rooms that consisted of a bed made from bamboo, a thin mattress and a sandy floor – I love my honeymoon! The next day the family that owned the accommodation wanted to dress someone up in traditional dress, I especially like the one of me and the chicken!! 

Me in traditional Peruvian dress (for that region)

With our tour guides

This was Shaun´s idea

The next day we trekked 2 hours further down the mountain to a beautiful oasis with a fresh water pool, a well deserved treat. Then after a leisurely swim and a protein packed lunch we started on a very long haul up the canyon. I can honestly say this was not any ordinary hill, it was mammoth. Our guide told us it normally takes tourists 3.5 hours but my husband Bear Grylls did it in 1.40 mins. Me on the other hand took my time and made it in 2.15m. Although it was hard I really enjoyed it in the end and it was such an achievement when we got to the top. 

After having a nice sleep in yesterday we have come to our next destination, Paracas, the call it the ‘poor mans Galapagos’. As its name suggests, it really is the poor mans Galapagos, hence we are leaving tomorrow, off to Lima, capital of Peru. We are staying fairly close to the beach and Shaun is VERY excited. 

 I’m just loving all these new places, time passes ever so slowly. 

A few other random pics 

 

 

 

Advertisement

4 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI