The second deepest canyon

The Picture are:

1. The sugar eating bandit

2. My own motorcycle diaries at 5000 meters

3. Aren't they cute.

4. The Canyon

5. Locals dancing, much better than I could.

So where was I on the Peru tales? While Eva and I were in Arequipa we took an over night excursion to Colca Canyon. Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world. It is over 3400 meters deep. So where is the deepest, anybody know? I mean do you know without the Internet? It is a very common excursion to take from Arequipa and Eva and I had the added bonus of having it be our birthday trip. Eva's is the day before mine so we spent our birthdays visiting the canyon.

We got up very early and joined about 25 others for the trip to Chivay, the base for exploring the canyon. Along the way we saw lots of llamas. We also saw vicunas, alpacas and one guanaco, all part of the same family of camelids. At one rest stop, while we were waiting for tea, an Alpaca burst into the restaurant. He knew what he was doing and went straight for a sugar bowl on a table. He got a few mouth fulls of sugar before the waitress could shue him out. On the drive we also passed a point that was just under 5000 meters (15,000) feet, which is the highest I have ever been. Insert your own jokes there.

When we go to Chivay we had lunch and then checked into our hotel. We had a little free time in town, then we all went to a hot springs near town. It was nice to have a soak even though the pool was packed with tourists. After the soak we went to a group dinner that included a show of indigenous dancing and music. They had us participate in the dancing and because Eva and I were sitting on the end, we did the most participating. I did not put any pictures of that, because well, its not pretty. My dancing at low altitudes is not great, and when I am gasping for air it is much worse. Some how I managed to surprise Eva with having them bring a birthday banana pancake with candles. Ironically that was the same food she threw up on the Nazca flight.

The next day we were again up very early because we still had a long drive to the best view point of the canyon. There are lots of condors at the canyon, and they generally soar around a certain cliff at 9 in the morning. We had to make it there for 9 and still drive all the way back to Arequipa, so an early start. The condors were amazing birds with wing spans over 9 feet. They were really great to see, but to me did not compare to the beauty of the canyon over which they soared.

There was a lot of driving and some early starts on our overnight excursion. It was not a restful birthday for either of us. But we were glad to spend it together, and in such a wonderful place. The trip to the Canyon should not be missed on any Peru trip. It seems that I keep saying that about our Peru visit, but we really didn't go to a place we didn't enjoy.