Cusco Day 2 – Part I

Saturday was a great sleep in day, with nothing much to do early in the morning. Dave made it in to our hostel at around 4am, and Mom & Dad made it to theirs about the same time. We were going to the Cusco area tour in the early afternoon. We went down to Mom & Dad’s hostel and met them and went to Norton Pub, which had some great atmosphere with flags on the ceiling and interesting pictures on the wall. We went to try and check in with Peru Treks (our tour company for the Machu Picchu hike) but they closed early for lunch. So we walked back to our hostel for the tour. Unfortunately it was a lot of walking as we had to walk right back down to the square for where our tour picked us up. We left 45 minutes late, then were stuck in traffic for 15 minutes to go 3 blocks to our first stop. Needless to say we weren’t all that impressed. We started at Qurikancha which was the sanctuary of the Sun God later converted to the Convent of Santo Domingo. It was kind of interesting, but not quite what we were looking for. The next stop was going to Saqsaywaman which is when the rain really started. It was amazing to see the size, scope, and scale of some of the rocks that were there.

However, we are just readying to leave for the 4 day hike to Machu Picchu, so the rest of Cusco and the hike there will have to wait until Thursday night.

Cusco Day 1

Nathan, Tyson, Rox, Mike, and I got into Cusco at 3:30am, all piled into one cab and headed to our hostel. When we arrived there at 4:00, we were told that we were very early and our rooms wouldn’t be ready until 11:00. They took us into the common room to crash on a couch, but it was really cold, and nobody got a lot of sleep. In the morning we headed out and had a good breakfast. Walked past the 12 corner stone by happenstance, wandered around the main square, then hopped on the double decker tour bus to see what all is in the city; all while killing time before being able to go for a nap. The Plaza del Armas is quite nice with the Basilica Cathedral on one end.

The tour took us up and around town and up to Saqsaywaman (essentially pronounced “sexy woman”) which is high up in the hills overlooking Cusco.

We continued onto the Blanco Christo statue overlooking the city which provided great views.

The tour took us back to the main square just in time for us to head back to the hostel and check in. We walked past the infamous 12-corner stone on the way.

We checked in and settled down for a much needed nap. After getting up, we headed down to Paddy’s Pub, the highest elevation English pub in the world. We grabbed some lunch and walked over to the local market, where Rox  bought some incredible street-spray paint art for a fabulous price.

We toured through the market a bit and headed back to the hostel, watched a movie while I sold my condo from a continent away and headed to bed early.

Puno & Lake Titicaca

When we arrived in Puno after dark, we didn’t have anything at all set up for accommodations. Thankfully the hostess on our bus was able to find us a hotel, get us a deal, and arrange a transfer there. We got all checked in an it was quite nice with big beds and good wifi. We went out to the Pizzeria Trattoria El Fogon for dinner and went through 5 famillia sized pizzas and 3 liter jugs of wine.

Thursday morning was a little bit rough, but we were up early to go out and see the floating reed islands on the lake. This was where we split up a little. Mom, Dad, and Dave were going for the fuller reed island tour and spending a night on an island, while the rest of us were just going for a trip to one island to see what it was about.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at 3,800m and is the largest lake in South America at 8,560km² (a little bit larger than Lake Athabaska in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan). The lake is also quite pretty and gives a great view of Puno.

The deepest part of the lake is 281m, but in the shallows reeds grow and the Uros (pre-Incan) people built floating islands out of them to live on. This was purely defensive as if threats arose, they could just move their island away from it. This was how they avoided being taken over by the Incans. The island of Uros is just outside of Puno’s harbour, a quick 30 minute boat ride, so we headed there.

We stopped at one island, got a small demonstration of how the island was built, wandered around on it a bit, and were able to buy some crafts.

Then we went on their “Mercedes Benz” boat for a short cruise around the area and a cute little girl sand us songs in Spanish, Spanglish, Spfrench, Spgerman, and Spitalian.

We got to another island where they had cut a bunch of reeds to put as a new layer on top. And guess what, they had a bunch of tourist help.

We pulled about 60m worth of bundled reeds in about 15 trips, and we got paid in a cup of Inca Cola each (kinda like a carbonated banana flavoured pop), which works out to about 1 sole an hour (40¢/hr). After putting a whole new layer on the island, we headed on the boat back to Puno. Since our whole trip went far quicker than expected, we were back at 10:00, and there isn’t too much else to do in Puno. We were trying to walk towards the steam ship SS Yavari which is docked there, and came across a couple coast guard patrol craft and a cutter. Needless to say we got escorted out of the area pretty quick. We took a tuk-tuk back to the Plaza del Armas wandered a bit, and ended up in a restaurant for lunch. The lunch was overpriced, slow, and not that great, but we tried cuy (guinea pig) in 4 different styles.

Nobody was overly happy with their guinea pig, just something to check off the list. They are very fatty, so the deep fried ones turned out better than the others. With not too much else to do, we wandered a bit, saw a square, and arch, a market, then found a restaurant to have a drink or three. Then we went to another bar, and had a few more drinks, and played chinese checkers (Mike won).

We were well on our way by then, and went back to the same pizzeria as the night before and went through two pizzas and two jugs of wine. Then right outside the restaurant we bought alpaca sweaters (well 50/50 blends), while being in poor shape. We wandered back to the hotel grabbed our bags, cabbed to the bus depot and took our night bus to Cusco.

Colca Canyon – Day 2

Wednesday we were up relatively early to grab a breakfast and head off on a hike in the town of Cabanaconde. We saw some sheep, donkeys, goats, and dogs on our way to the town’s viewpoint. Again so hard to put it into perspective. And we saw an Andean Eagle.

 

From there we hopped on the bus and headed back to the Condor Cross viewpoint, and there was a male juvenile Andean Condor sitting on a rock right there.

Andean Condors are the heaviest flying bird with adult males weighing 17kg and have the second longest wingspan of a flying bird at 3.3m (just shy of the Wandering Albatross at 3.6m). They are scavengers from the vulture family, with adults laying eggs every 2 years. Their hatchlings stay in their nest for 2 years, where their parents (who mate for life) carry up to 5kg of food to regurgitate and feed them. Juveniles are identified by their brown colour and reach maturity at 16 years of age when they change to their black and white colouring. The males have a crest on their head and yellow eyes, while the females have no crest and red eyes.

After seeing the juvenile and another one, while shopping, a large male took off and rode the thermals nearby.

 

We went on a little hike to another viewpoint, got a group picture with the canyon in the background, then another adult condor took off and circled overhead.

We stopped at a great viewpoint of the valley and all of the terracing; truly spectacular.

We stopped at the small town of Mica which was mostly for pictures with Andean Eagles and alpacas.

Dave got spat on by an alpaca he was trying to hug, for everyone else, it was quite hilarious. The tour then took us to the hot springs outside of Chivay where the water came out of the ground boiling at 85 degrees Celsius (because water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes). We started out in the 38 degree pool then moved over to the 41 degree pool for a few minutes. The water had tons of minerals in it, rubbing your hands together when wet was almost like rubbing them in mineral oil. We were having the debate as to whether it was easier to breath at 4,900m or inside the hot springs at 3,650m.

  

We headed back to Chivay for lunch with the most interesting thing on the menu I found was alpaca noodle soup (just like chicken, but completely different).

We said our goodbyes to Jessica and Juan and then boarded the tourist bus to go to Puno. As we were leaving Chivay it started to rain, and when getting up to elevation at Pampa pata Pampa it was full on snow. The rain shower turned into a lightning storm, which was very strange to see lighting with snow. A bunch of non-Canadian tourists were amazed at the snow and had their video cameras out, but all of us knew the danger  with the slippery roads with 1,000m cliffs without guardrails. Thankfully there were no snow-induced incidents. We stopped for a quick sandwich and bathroom break where the road forks back to Arequipa and to Puno, and there was an Andean Hawk sitting on the roof.

A little ways further up the road we got into a small collision. There was a semi-truck stopped on the side of the road with mechanical issues right in front of a blind corner. As per standard practice, we passed him, and as we were coming by a semi-truck was coming the other way. While we missed the tractor, the front corner of the trailer hit the back side of our bus right by Mike’s seat. He was very thankful he went to the bathroom when we stopped. The driver of the other truck jumped out, checked the corner of his trailer (which said “COMBUSTIBLE” on the front of it), noticed no leaks and kept driving. Our bus driver took the side lights that were “removed” from the rear side of our bus, put them in a luggage compartment, and we headed on our way. On our next bathroom stop on the way we surveyed the damage, it was just a flesh wound.

 

Our stop was at Lagunillas Lake with is at 4,200m and is 47m deep. It was cold and raining, so grabbed a quick photo and got back on the bus.

The bus headed through to Juliaca and again on to Puno.

Colca Canyon Day 1 – Part II

Lunch was at a buffet in a restaurant jammed with other tourists. It was my first time eating alpaca and it was absolutely delicious.

We were in town a little bit doing some shopping where most bought some alpaca wool goods; I got a baby alpaca scarf and it is so soft. We left Chivay and headed a ways out of town to the Pre-Incan/Incan town of Uyu Uyu at 3,560m. It was a 2km hike in to the site up some elevation up some terraces at the end too.

There was active archeology going on in the site, reconstructing buildings stone by stone (each one gets a number so they ensure they are in the right place when they put them back). We even found some pieces of pottery on the ground as well as some obsidian fragments on the way into the hike. Jessica did a great job of explaining everything, even the Inca stairs (2 or three stones that jut out from the terrace walls).

  

We stopped down by the Colca River by a small arch bridge, and I absolutely had to get a picture.

From there we headed to the Condor Cross viewpoint at (3,800m) overlooking the Colca Canyon which is the deepest canyon in the world. It is really hard to capture or fathom the scale of it. We weren’t expecting to see any condors in the evening, but it was great to be there when there were no other tourists around at all.

Our last event of the day was an evening hike down towards the town of Capanaconde. I managed to take some great long exposure photographs post sunset.

The only issue I had taking one of them, was not seeing where I was leaning to place my camera, and I got stuck by a cactus in the shin…

Despite being barbed, thankfully it all came out in one piece without leaving anything in me. We finished up the hike and got down to Capanaconde (3,285m) to our hotel, showered up and had supper. I had a delicious alpaca steak for dinner.

Then it was having a drink while dealing with very finicky internet before heading to bed for an early start.