First Day

Usually you like your first day in a new city to be laid back. You like to have your friends show you around. You like to go out to eat. Do things that give you a sense of the place but let you recover from the travel to get there. This was not one of those first days. I arrived in town on a friday night (about 11pm I think). And because we thought there was going to be a huelga (a strike) the next day, we had to rush off and buy our supplies for our trip to the jungle. So I woke up at 8ish the next morning and went over to my friends house. They helped me put together a list of things to buy so that I would be prepared for our time in the jungle. (I would have been completely lost but thankfully they have done this before and were a great help in preparing) So we head into town about 10 and spend the entire time running between stores buying food. I have never bought that much food in my life. I was embarrassed pulling the 30 boxes of Mac and Cheese out of my cart. As we were nearing the end of our shopping day, we were in the market getting spices when a young boy walked up to me and asked in spanish if that was our car parked outside. I said maybe, I think so. To which he responded, you are being robbed.

Well my friend and I run out to the car. A huge 1980s suburban. We had two months of groceries with us for 3 families. So there was a lot in the car. When we got to the car there were about 8 policemen around and a crowd had gathered at the scene. My friend stars speaking rapidly to the cop in spanish while another police officer pulls some bags out of the bed of their truck. Thankfully they had caught the ladron red handed. And had put him in the truck and recovered our groceries. We decided it would be good to press charges, and the police told us it would only take a few minutes. So we head to the police station and because the thief had broken the lock on the car I had to sit with the car while my friends sorted things out with the cops. About two and a half hours later we left the police station but without the stolen groceries! The police said they needed them until an inspector could go through them. At this point we thought the real robbery had taken place! But thankfully my friends were able to go back about and hour later and get the groceries. (Though they waited an hour and a half more at the police station) Not the way you want to but a good introduction to life in this jungle town.

Tomorrow I leave civilization for two months. So I will have a lot to write about when I get back. Until then.
Seth
Kong
Alley Oop
and Hungry

The Magic Number

Well he magic number is 190.

190 is all I can take. 190kgs on the plane.

Me and Clothes ~ 100kg
Gas ~20kg
General Groceries ~ 28kg
Mac & Cheese and Ramen Noodles ~21kg
Cookies and Crackers and Chips ~5kg
...
...
...

Right now I'm about 15kg over. But I'll be down by monday when we load it all on the plane.

Next Post I'll talk about my first day in Pucallpa

Seth
Kong
Alley Oop
y Hambre

More Colca

Hey So I made it to the edge of the jungle just fine and I will post more on that soon. But for now I owe you more on our colca canyon trip!

Well the adventure started before we even left. We got up at 12:45 in order to catch our taxi at 1. Miriam, Todd, Stephanie, and I were out front waiting for our taxis to take us to the bus station. I forgot my down jacket in the house and we had closed the door. Well none of us had a key for the door. And because it was so late we didn't want to ring the bell! But the window to Todd and Stephs room was unlocked. So we boosted steph up and she was able to open the window, climb in, and get my jacket. After that we got in the taxis and went to the bus station. We were on the bus quickly and our seats were spread out over 3 rows. Todd and I by ourselves and Steph and Miriam sharing a row. I thought I would be able to fall asleep no problem, but I was wrong! The bus was dark and quite and relatively free of passengers on the first stage of our journey. After we arrived in Chivay everything changed! We took on a whole load of Peruvian humanity most of whom didn't have seats! The roads also changed from paved to dirt and the lights were now on the and driver was blasting folk music. Needless to say I didn't sleep. Todd had the worst of it though, he lost his assigned seat when we took on more passengers and spent the whole ride cold, motion sick and in the front of the bus!

so we arrived about 6:45am on the edge of the canyon; not having slept. We had a quick breakfast and then slept on the floor outside in the sun for an hour. After that we started hiking to the bottom.

The hike to the bottom was essentially in three stages. First was a set of switchbacks, then to a flat section along a ridge (in the shade thankfully) then down another set of steeper switchbacks to the bridge at the bottom (you saw most of this in the video). We were really tired after navagating the steep switchbacks with so much water in our packs. Then it was 45min to where we stayed the first night! We were exhausted! We ate lunch and hung out with other people hiking. It was a great time!

The next morning we were up early again. We left the "lodge" by 7am in order to do your ascent in the shade. It was timed just right. As we hit the high point of our hiking that day we came into the sun. The it was along the ridge and back down to the river where another small town was waiting. It was a beautiful place with a really nice lodge and a great pool!

We relaxed the whole afternoon, which was entirely needed! We had to get up early the next day so we went to bed right after we finished listening to Peru play soccer.

We were up even earlier the next morning. We started hiking at 3:15 am!! So early!! The reason it is necessary to leave so early is there are only two buses leaving to go see the condors, one at 6 and one at 8 so in order to catch either of those you have to leave super early! We made good time and reached the top right after 6. After a quick breakfast we headed to catch the bus to the overlook where the condors were. We met up there with a group of our friends that weren't able to go hiking with us but instead did the bus tour of the canyon. We then rode back to Arequipa with them checking out some sites on the way and grabbing lunch in Chivay. It was an incredible time!

Seth
Kong
Ally Opp
y Hambre

Colca Canyon

Well all here is a video I made really quick about our trip to colca. It doesn't have everything in it as my camera died (batteries) mid way through day one. So I will post a write up with pictures soon but the video will give you an idea of what is going on. Keep in mind that I had slept maybe two hours the night before, so if stuff isn't clear blame it on that