Rivers, Canyons and Condors!

After another cold, but not nearly as bad, adventure on an overnight bus to Arequipa, I arrived at the hostel at 6am and went back to sleep until 11:30am. I hope you can imagine how nice it is to get in a bed after trying to sleep on a bus for over 8 hours. When you are cold, stuck in a chair, with no more clothes to put on because you are wearing absolutley every bit of warmth you have, and your eyes are heavy but won´t agree with your brain to just sleep, well that´s when a bed looks like a tropical oasis. Anyway, I found out that at 1:30 that afternoon there was a white water rafting trip for a couple hours. This meant missing the final Euro Cup game and after being such a loyal fan of whatever team I chose during each game, I was a bit bummed. Oh well, rafting turned out to be a much better experience I´m sure! I filled the last spot and figured it was going to be other people from my hostel. That wasn´t the case as I was picked up by a rafting guide in a taxi and driven across town to the garage where the rafts were kept. I asked him in the car where the other people were and he said they were going to be where we were going. When we got to the garage, it was just two other guides. They had me help bag up the wetsuits and life jackets. I´m thinking, they are making me do their work for them and then they are going to kill me! I´m kidding, they were very nice people, and one of them even knew Ben, the owner of the hostel in Cusco. So I asked again where everyone else was and they told me they were arriving in a mini bus because they were all together. Great. An entire group of buddies and ME. So the mini bus pulled up and they told me to get in, but there wasn´t a seat for me so I rode in the taxi with the guides. Being typical guides, they started telling me all about the city and the surrounding mountains. One guide pointed in front of us and said there was a river in that direction that is really warm. He then pointed to the river that we were nearing and said ´this is Chili River where we will be rafting and it is VERY COLD.´ Fantastic! How did he know that I love being cold? I told him to give me a paddle and a raft, and just drop me off at River Caliente (that means hot and is not actually the name of the river, whereas Chili River is the real name, no pun intended). So I met the rest of the group, that ended up being two groups of friends so it wasn´t that bad. A group of 20 year old girls from England and a group of 40 year old guys from England. So I was obviously the outcast but they were really nice. There were three boats of 4 plus one guide each and I was with one of the girls and two of the guys. We were given our strict instrustions that consisted of, ´front paddle,´ ´back paddle,´ ´stop!´ a couple others, and we were on our way. There were a few fun slopes and rock dodging, but overall it was an easy stretch of the river with one acception. We slammed into a rock, which wouldn´t have been a bad thing because the rafts ar so strong, but there was a rather large branch sticking out that caught the man in front of me in the chest. As the raft kept drifting downstream, the man was trapped by the branch and pulled into the water. It looked pretty painful, but he took it okay! Of course if it had been me, I wouldn´t have enjoyed the ´Chili´ water filling my wetsuit. Everytime we got close to the other rafts a water fight would break out by splashing each other with the paddles. Well, I got a nice splash down my back and it was quite something! At the end of the journey, feet like pins and needles and hands so cold I couldn´t even unsnap my lifejacket, I would have done it again in a heart beat (once my hands could grip the paddle again).

I got back to the hostel, took an amazingly hot shower and found out that I was leaving that night at 1am for the Colca Canyon Trek. I left Cusco with my Aussie friend Dean and was meeting our English friend George in Arequipa to do the trek together. We picked up another English guy, Tim, from the Arequipa hostel and happily jumped back on a wonderful bus at 1am that night..uh, morning. We arrived in the small town of Cobaconde at 7am for breakfast followed by a never ending, slippery decent into the canyon. After that much downhill walking, I wished (at times) that I were walking uphill instead, but day 2 made me want to go downhill again. Classic `want what you can`t have.` That night we stayed at The Oasis, complete with swimming pool, waterfall, and bamboo huts to sleep in. We swam for a bit, but in the depths of the canyon the sun was quickly fading and since I was traveling sans towel I jumped out and ran up the side of the canyon to catch the last few minutes of sun. We sat by the pool and played cards until our delicious soup and spaghetti dinner. I love how good the food tastes after a long hike. I also enjoy no electricity because that means bed time is when the sun goes down and since we had been up since 1am the night before, I had no problem crashing. Woken up by a flashlight swirling through the hut, I told myself to keep dreaming. Unfortunately, it was our guide Antonio waking us up at 3:30am for the day 2 hike out of the canyon. Only 3 out of 5 of us had torches (flashlights for us Americans), one of them being our quick footed guide so count that one out and make that 2 torches for 4 people. Luckily, I was one of the torch holders, thanks to my pops :) Hiking straight up a canyon wall at 4am, empty stomach, dodging donkey droppings, body hot but skin freezing..was..awesome! That might be a bit of an overstatement. It was really hard but really cool and definitely rewarding once we got to the top 2 hours later. We had breakfast and caught a bus to go see the condors. They told us they get to be 3 meters long but I don`t think we saw any THAT big. They are really big birds though and not very attractive. It was really crowded, everyone with camera in hand, waiting like a hunter for the best shot. 17 naked people could have walked by and no one would have flinched. Why? Condors! Walking back to the bus I heard someone say, `Kelsey?` No way does someone know me here. Well, it was a girl with glasses and a beanie on so I was still pretty confused, but it turned out to be a girl from my rafting trip, small world. We had the option to take the bus to the hot springs, but it was hot enough so we passed and decided to go back to Arequipa.

That night we got some awesome Mexican food, which is pretty hard to come by around here, and said goodbye to George and Tim who were off to Chile. The next day Dean and I walked to the Plaza de Armas and ran into a guy who we met in Cusco. We got smoothies `para llevar` which means `to go.` I think, and hope you would agree, that when you order a smoothie to go, that typically means you want to drink it, just not in the store. Well they put our smoothies in plastic tupperware, with a lid. Interesting choice. I asked for a straw and enjoyed my smoothie bucket next to the pigeon lady in the square. We then headed to the bus station so I could buy my ticket to Ica and Dean bought his for Chile. That night, before our departure, we went with a group of 12 or so from the hostel to a go-kart course. I don`t remember the last time I drove a go-kart, but it was pretty fantastic! I am running out of time before my flight to Iquitos this afternoon so I will continue next time with the sand buggies in Huacachina, also pretty fantastic! I don`t know if I will have internet again since I am about to go play with anacondas and monkeys but I will write again when I can. Adios.