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.
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