NOS VEMOS

We left Cuzco floated on a river of tearful goodbyes. As many from our friend as from the campesino mamachas, and caseras at our local Mercado. The locals (not the new generation of mestizos) don´t handle our easy going, transitive lifestyle as casually as we assume. The idea of “leaving” is harsh and sudden, and cries of dangers away from home and family. Home and family are their dearest possessions. And, so, tears flow, even from Berta and her sisters, with whom we dedicatedly bought all our market goods (thus the reference “casera”). And an especially difficult and surprising farewell from Señora Isidora´s Mama, who couldn´t recognize us from every other passing gringo until just a month ago. But, finally, greeted us cheerfully everyday with “Hola Mami” and “Wee-nas dias Papi”. As we parted on our last day, she posed for a beautiful picture before realizing what the day meant, and begged us to be safe, willed our return, implored us from behind dark, watery eyes. She clasped our hands and kissed us each directly on the lips.

::sigh::

The beauty of these people is unmistakeably Cuzquenian Quechua, and immediately transformed as we traveled to the coast of Lima, and continued North to Piura. It´s a genuine culture of the Andees. It is Quechua. It is now home to our hearts.

colca canyon, peru

colca canyon, peru, a set on Flickr.
the Colca Canyon  is said to be the deepest canyon in the world, from rim to bottom, deeper than the Grand Canyon! We had perfect weather, sunny all the way down...then cloudy and rainy all the way up. We chose to go without a guide or a group this time...just us and our friend Robin, which was awesome and gave us the flexibility we are more acustomed to. Except for some reason we still had to be up to catch the bus at 3am to the trail head! Why oh why must everything start so damn early in this country?
Anyway our trail had us start at the top of the west side rim and head straight down to the river that carved this massive canyon. We climbed back up the east rim through small villages that had seen better days before mining had taken over the area and destroyed the ecosystem. Back down again to the river, through a light rain. The color of the trail changed so many times, from a green grey to bright orange yellow. We crossed the river the Sangalle, the "oasis"...and it truly was, green lawns, flowers, pools carved into rocks. Here we decicded to stay an extra day and get get up super early to tackle the 3,000 meter climb out. We explored the waterfall, collected water, swam in the pool and played games with the kids! They had everything there you could want...aside from hot water, so we hung out and made the climb the next day.

arequipa, peru

arequipa, peru, a set on Flickr.

arequipa...with Robin. The Santa Catalina Monestario by candle light was glorious!

leaving cuzco

So after a three months rental of our apartment in Cuzco, it was time to leave. We really enjoyed having our own place to cook, relax, have dinner parties, and movie nights with friends. We loved having extra room to extend hospitality to family, friends and fellow travellers. Leaving the comforts of Cuzco meant we would be leaving favorite haunts, flavors and friends for the unknown. After moving out of the apartment we spent a week in Ollantaytambo, a small village still in the sacred valley, where Michael would wrap up the project he started with Awamaki, a local NGO. This was a beautiful sleepy village with big views and landscape.

We reunited with our friend Robin to travel to Arequipa. Happy to be traveling with our friend we loaded onto the bus, for the first long bus ride in a long, long time. After the 8 hour night ride we landed in Arequipa at the base of the volcan Misti. Arriving at the hostel we realized we had been relieved of our camera, netbook, and external hard drive.

Well, such is travel life...especially when you get to comfortable and complacent. It´s easy to forget all your travel security habits. Now moving through the continent a bit lighter, I will try to keep up the blogging, although living in our own apartment definitely slowed that process for me.

Arequipa is a beautiful city...so it was easy to help us move on from our loss. We immediately met new friends at the hostel and made plans to trek the Colca Canyon the next day. The archeture in this city is remarkably different and make me feel like i am in Morocco, or somewhere NOT in Peru. It´s known as the "white city" because it´s older buildings are made of a porous volcanic stone. We had landed in time for the evening candle lit tour of the Monestario de Santa Catalina....highly recommended!! Super magical and incredible!

We also did a day trip to la playa! It was so lovely to visit Mama Pacifica, we haden´t seen the ocean for months...or even longer to be IN it! And now the next time we see the ocean it will be the Atlantic! For here in Arequipa we decided to change our route from south to east. Hearing of all the fires and park closures in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego right now, we decided to test our flexibility with our trip and move east into Bolivia. We are "planing" to travel through Bolivia, and into northern Argentina, east again to Buenas Aires and maybe into Uruguay....who the hell knows at this point! Right now we go where the wind takes us! 

Salkantay Day 5 Machu Picchu

I promised myself I would finish this Salkantay series before the first of the year...and so here I am, Dec. 29...doing it. I'll keep this one short and sweet, I think the photos speak for themselves. Machu Picchu is....well, MACHU fricken PICCHU!!!! Truly epic in every way you could imagine. We were blessed with gorgeous weather the whole 5 days, and our last day was no less perfect...we even got sunburns because we weren't planning on that kind of sun. Mach Picchu has been a dream of mine for a very very long time, and I was able to see almost every bit of it! Xylia climb to the top of Huyana Picchu, which is the mountain tower you see in the background of the "classic" MP shot....there are even more ruins up there!

Salkantay Day 5 Machu Picchu, a set on Flickr.