We come from the mountains
…living in the mountains, go back to the mountains, turn the world around…
- remember that Harry Belafonte song? It was on the Muppet Show once. Anyway…
Had a great time experiencing a bit of the beautiful mountain range and life outside of Arequipa. Arequipa is about 2,000 something meters high, and I have had to drink more water and use sunblock constantly to keep up with the consequences of being at a higher altitude. I started drinking coca tea and sucking on coca candy while on my trip to Chivay and Colca Canyon over the weekend. At the highest point of the tour, after viewing alpacas, llamas, and random foul along the way, we were snapping pictures of snow-capped mountains in the distance at 4,000 something meters. Definitely felt a little winded and slightly headachey, thank goodness not nauseous–another common altitude sickness symptom. We then drove on to Chivay, an even smaller mountain town that sits at about 3,500 meters.
In Chivay, we went to the hot spring baths and relaxed with nearly 200 other people in indoor and outdoor pools. It was nice to sit back and watch the stars after a day on a little bus on bumpy dirt-packed and gravelly roads. Later in the night, we had dinner at a tradicional-cuisine restaurant and watched some traditional dancing. I, of course, had to check out the night life, and when two others suggested going out with our guide later, I said, why not. We went to the hottest little bar in tiny Chivay and danced for a couple hours to salsa. I only drank water (and perhaps this was the problem when I found out that I need a lot more help with my salsa)… something to fix back in Arequipa.
After only 4 or so hours of sleep, I saw the famous Flight of the Condors over the Colca Canyon. They are beautiful birds with wingspans of 3 meters across. There are no words (and even my pictures don’t do it justice) to desribe the breathtaking beauty of the Colca canyon. In hindsight, I probably should have paid the extra money for the extra day to actually trek down into it, but at the time that I booked my excursion I wasn’t feeling up to it. This canyon is miles deep, and the condors take off every morning floating on the wind to find carcases to eat in the mountains.
We learned all about the pre-Incan, Incan, and post-Incan/colonial way of life. The fields of the farmland are terraces, using the best manipulation of the terrain and weather to optimize food production. Did you know that potatoes come from here and there are thousands of varieties? Carbs are definitely a big part of the Peruvian diet. It’s amazing what the Incans and their predessors were able to do with these mountains. They also sacrificed people to their gods, even children. And somewhere in those mountains archeologists found several 400-500 year old tombs of frozen sacrificed children. I saw once them, Juanita, that they are still keeping on ice in a museum in Arequipa. It’s pretty crazy to think about the antiquity surrounding me everyday here.
Turn the world around.
