Today was the earliest start yet: alarm set for 5:15. By 6, we had eaten our breakfast of various unknown cereals and were loading into the coach. The local llama seemed certain that he was joining our trip too, or so it seemed. We had a big day ahead of us, and as excited as we were, it wasn't quite enough to keep our eyelids open the whole day today. Our first destination was a famous known lookout point called the Cruz de Condor. Our bus drove right along the cliffside of the massive canyon, and we sometimes wondered how such a big coach could travel this dusty logging road. Most of my pictures today were taken on my main camera today because when we stopped, the views were so incredible that i had to take advantage of panorama mode. I guarantee you'll be impressed with those shots when you eventually see them. The road got even more interesting when we entered a large winding tunnel with no lights. The bus driver turned off his lights for a few seconds just to freak everyone out. Finally, we made it to the peak - the most popular location for seeing Peru's national bird in flight. The condor doesn't actually flap its wings to fly, it glides on the updrafts. This massive canyon seemed to be the perfect location for such. There were also a few vendors selling water and textiles on this point, so we took advantage. I feel that my spanish is getting better and better every day which is a really good feeling. The water was really important to buy since we're still at a very high altitude. To put it into perspective, everyone's liquids (sunscreen, shampoos, etc) were bursting the same way they would on a plane. I know that a few people's heads and stomachs were feeling a little bit the same way as the bottles. On the way back from the viewpoint, we stopped in a little town. I'm constantly surprised by the importance of Catholicism in Peru. We literally drive by towns filled with run down shacks and huts but with a huge, extravagant church in the centre. I looked inside one at this stop and the inside was like a cathedral. Continuing on, we went for an amazing buffet lunch at a town called Chivay which was actually really close to where we stayed last night. Here we had a large variety of common peruvian foods, to be followed by a local specialty: Guinea pig. It was fried and really didn't taste bad at all - the only deterrent was probably that it was staring back at us (yes, fried head and all). I almost accidentally took the head at first - it looked like the tamest piece on the plate before i realized what it was. After lunch, we hopped in the bus for our long ride to Puno. I was very happy that i bought music and made a playlist before I left. The music made the ride go by. Very little really happened on the ride down. We stopped in a town just outside Puno to pick up our new tour guide for this region. He said that this town was the major black market town of south america where everyone smuggles goods from the nearby, poorer country of Bolivia. The day finished off with a real shower and Peruvian fried chicken for dinner. We decided to take off back to the hotel early since we were both tired, however a couple blocks out, we realized we had no clue where we were going! After a couple wild guesses, we actually found our hotel by chance and realized that we had found a shorter route than how we came. I guess we're just natural navigators, lol. Anyway, tomorrow should be a whole lot more interesting since it isn't a transit day. Hopefully I get wifi soon!
The canyon view on the way to the condors
Puno once we had grasped how to navigate it
No comments:
Post a Comment