In the early morning hours I could already see the impressing volcanoes surrounding Arequipa.
When I arrived, my couchsurfer Hugo picked me up and we stopped on many places to enjoy the beautiful sunset. After he introduced me to his family, we went to a BBQ with some of his friends. They all recommended me to go to the Colca Canyon to enjoy my short time the best in that area.
So after just 2! hours of sleep, Hugo woke me up and drove me to the bus terminal at 3.30am. It was a local mini bus and after three or four hours I finally arrived at the Mirador del Condor. I could hardly open my eyes but already after a few minutes I saw one of the giant condors flying right above me.
With a depth of 3270 m it is one of the deepest canyons in the world, second in Peru after the Cotahuasi Canyon and more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States.
While I enjoyed the stunning view, there were some guys asking the tourists to pay entrance for the national park. I talked with them quite long in spanish and at the end they even gave me a Sudamericano ticket with a discount 🙂
Then I began to walk. I realized that the track starts some kilometers away so I was lucky to catch one of the only cars driving by.
It was the first time that I was completely alone and that is exactly what I wanted to be . At least 2 days of my 270 day trip with no one else around. Of course there were some other hikers on the way but after saying “Hola” I just kept walking.
It was a very important experience and it´s funny how fast I went schizophrenic, started to talk to myself and just did nonsense stuff all day long.
I just kept walking for about 10 hours, walked down the canyon and up on the other side, until it started to rain. I didn´t expect that actually. My plan was to find two trees and sleep somewhere with my hammock. Now I had a problem.
Luckily I found a cave quite fast 🙂
I prepared my self a delicious dinner with some Smoked Tuna Patagonia Style.
The next day I walked back the whole way and nearly dehydrated in the sun because I did not bring enough water with me. When I arrived back in Arequipa, I bought some new shoes. I totally destroyed my other pair during my hikes in Patagonia and the hike in the Canyon gave them the rest.
After another day exploring the center of Arequipa I took a bus to Cusco.
I´ve met Camilo here who showed me some other Peruvian Cocktails and the San Blas Market, where you can have a three course menu with a drink for 5 Soles (>1.50€).
On the next day I met a german friend, who I´ve met in Colombia the first time and we went to have a couple of drinks to celebrate his birthday. First we went to a local bar to drink some local Chicha de jora which is a type of corn beer and tastes awful.
Then we went to the highest 100% Irish owned Pub on the Planet.
It is probably also the worst Irish Pub in the world because they don´t even serve Guiness from the tap…(There is no corresponding demand for Guiness in Peru)but at the end we found a nice bar with some pool tables and good beer 🙂
At 5am the next morning I took the cheapest way to go to Macchu Picchu.
After two days I came back to Cusco and Camilo welcomed me with a dinner, a Coca Tea and I could finally take a (ice cold) shower.
The next day, I bought some souvenirs,visited some markets and took the cheapest bus to Puno at the Titicaca lake.That was a big mistake…