Cusco & Colca Canyon

This part of the trip wasn't too fun for us both and (touch wood) it was the only part that went wrong. Touching down from Puerto Maldonado heading back to Cusco, I took a turn for the worse on our flight and just before landing suffered from a convulsion. This set us back by a few days and after a few days of resting, filling in numerous forms, skyping home and being in hospital I began to feel much better. 

We hadn't really written about Cusco yet, but we were there before the Inca Trail and the Amazon so we had seen the little city inside out! It was a lovely place, with many squares (plazas) to watch the world go around with a coffee and see the beautiful architecture it had to offer. It had a chocolate museum, Inca museums (we will let you guess which we thought was better), a Peruvian version of Christ the Redeemer (which was smaller and white), many restaurants, many hostels and a few Peruvian children with sheep that you could have your picture with. Oh and a 8 cornered or sided or something rock. Something that seemed to be a big deal, but really, really wasn't. We also saw my friend from college, Louise and her boyfriend Darren and did a bit of Alpaca shopping.. Not the animals, things made from the fur. It was a nice middle stop between all our bigger adventures. 

Not wanting this to ruining the trip, after a few extra days spent in Cusco to rest up, we made our way by an 11 hour bus to Arequipa. It was here that we went on our second trek, this on to the Colca Canyon. This was the home of many condors, the biggest flying bird in the world. The trek was over three days and we had another wonderful group who we trekked with. The trek began with an early 3am (3.30am Peruvian time) pick up to see the condors move from the morning and migrate. These birds were absolutely huge and were a little terrifying to watch circle over us, but after being informed that they were scavengers and only fed on already dead animals, we were okay. 

The start of the trek was a downhill walk right into the canyon, along the way we were greeted by the sounds of the river and a small waterfall and we had spectacular views throughout the trek. We got to a cute little village that was really only made up of the hostel that we were staying in and a couple similar occupancies, here we were told that was all the walking for the day. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, possibly a small nap and then dinner before going back to bed. That day was pretty wild. 

The first day had been a tough walk for me coming out of hospital only a few days earlier but the second day was our favourite. This was through the bottom of the canyon so no tough climbing or knee burning descents, just really walking along the river, ending in the next hostel after a few hours. Once there the boys were challenged to a 'Rest of the World' vs. Peru football match by some of the locals, suffering a highly contentious loss of 9-10 before a dip in the pool and a traditional (and unusual) Easter weekend Peruvian dinner of fish egg soup, which wasn't our favourite dinner and was probably the worst dinner we had have all trip! The only option was to take advantage of happy hour ($1.50 mojitos) and learn a new Islamic card game called Cambio before bed, ready for the hardest day of trekking. 

The last day was all up hill back to the top of the Canyon, which was a tough hike starting at 5am. With the promise of breakfast at the top and hot springs to relax in after, we had something good to aim for! The walk was hard but the view was amazing, going further up the canyon meant we could see all the way down into it from the top and watch the condors circle looking for meat. Determined not to take a donkey up to the top, which was an option for people who didn't fancy the rest of the trek we made it to the end with team condor - the rest of our group and we had never been so happy to see scrambled eggs and toast!

After munching away breakfast, we ended our trek in the hot springs, which were in the middle of the valley, creating a spectacular background whilst in the water. With the sun itself almost being as hot as the springs, a run to the river to cool down before dipping into the springs was needed. We then all hopped into the mini bus, ready to get back to our beds before our next adventure, as we neared the end of our time in Peru.