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