The Day Of The Condor.

They are enormous birds, but when you see them in their native habitat, in Colca Canyon, they look almost tiny compared to the grandeur of the landscape.

Until they sweep noiselessly by you only a few feet away.



Then you see how big they really are. Their wingspan is almost ten feet, they stand three-and-a-half feet tall, and weigh up to 26 pounds.

But their habitat is huge, too. Colca Canyon is 10, 725 feet deep, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. It's about 100 miles on narrow, twisting, sometimes dirt roads from Arequipa.

We got up before 2 am for a 3 am pickup on a bus tour that didn't show up until nearly 4 am. The trip takes three hours, but I think the drivers really wanted to make up time, so we hurtled through the dark, often passing very slow trucks on blind corners, then stopping dead for no evident reason. At one point we had to leave the road entirely to get around a jack-knifed big rig where an emergency crew was working frantically under ominously flashing lights. The bus had so little heat that frost formed on the inside of the windows.



Eventually, though, we reached the valley, winding along the river past verdant terraced fields.

The condor viewpoint is at 12,000 feet. The air is cold, but the sun is quite warm. Our guide cautioned us that we might not see any condors, but we were lucky enough to see at least a dozen, basking in the morning sun or riding the thermals rising from the deep canyon.

The sun felt good after the frigid bus ride.

At each stop, there were hawkers selling souvenirs and refreshments. O and I bought some juicy, peeled cactus fruit, tart and refreshing. Later in the trip I had a pisco sour made from the same fruit. It was delicious, and at that altitude, quite intoxicating.

The hawkers also sell close encounters with various local animals: llamas, goats, hawks.

And of course cute baby llamas.

The villages at the mouth of the canyon are small and dusty, though there always a few satellite dishes on the roofs.

Basic services are available.

 

Life seems slower here.

Small though the towns may be, each has at least one church.

And the inside of those churches can be quite elaborate.

The sign of religious life are everywhere. Little shrines appear seemingly at random along the road.

Much of rural life hasn't changed for hundreds of years.

We stopped at some hot springs. O took a dip while I walked back up the steep, dusty road to take some shots of the beautiful little river valley.

I found a nice flat rock a little off the road where I could sit and meditate and just take in the amazing energy of this place.

My vantage point was just high enough to see the top of Sabancaya, a 19,000 foot volcano about 20 miles away. It is currently active, spewing a combination of gas, ash, and water vapor.

On the road back to Arequipa, we encountered a large herd of llamas.

As well as some rare, wild vicuñas. Vicuñas produce small amounts of extremely fine wool which is very expensive because the animal can only be shorn every three years, and has to be caught from the wild. The Inka valued vicuñas highly for their wool, and it was against the law for anyone but royalty to wear vicuña garments. Vicuñas were declared endangered in 1974, when only about 6,000 animals were left. Today, the vicuña population has recovered, but is still under threat.

One of our last stops was at Patapampa Pass at 16,109 feet, probably the highest paved pass in the Americas. This was a pilgrimage site for the Inkas and other ancient people because of the stunning views, which include most of the Amvolcanoes of southern Peru, from Chachani, Misti, and Picchu Picchu near Arequipa to Nevado Ampato (20,000 ft.), the three-headed active Sabancaya (highest summit is 19,000 feet) that last erupted in 1998, and Nevado Hualca-Hualca (just under 20,000 feet).

The pilgrims left “apachetas”, or small stone towers to mark their visit and as homage to the Apus, or mountain gods. Thousands still can be seen, and they are augmented by those of modern tourists.

We found out only later that the road through Patapampa Pass is considered one of the world's most dangerous, not just because snow and ice storms can blow in unexpectedly, but because drivers sometimes pass out from lack of oxygen. O couldn't even get out of the bus to take in the view because she had a splitting headache from the altitude.

Breathing was very difficult at that altitude. Or it may have been the breathtaking views.

P.

Mr. Eiffel's Market.

Alexander Gustave Eiffel is of course most famous for his tower, but he built projects all over the world. We walked across his bridge in Hanoi. See our post from 2009 on Long Bien Bridge.

What I didn't know was that he had an extensive body of work in Peru as well. In Arequipa alone he designed the Fenix Theater and the Iron Bridge.

In 1881, he designed the city's famous San Camilo Market.

It's still a thriving place today.



In fact, it's known as one of the best and most extensive markets in South America.



There are potatoes, of course. Peru is said to have over 3,000 varieties. There weren't that many here, but there were a lot.

Including these white ones. No, they're not peeled, they're actually white.

Stacks of great-looking local cheese.

Fat and tasty Peruvian olives.

Any kind of fruit your heart desires. And many it would desire if it knew what the hell they were.

Big, big squashes.



And of course crispy, fatty, delicious chunks and ribs of pork.

Our lunch plate. The potatoes here are very flavorful, even when they're just boiled. And the nuts on top are actually roasted kernels of corn. The corn here has kernels as big as your thumbnail. The roasted kernels taste like the unpopped kernels at the bottom of a bag of popcorn (always my favorite part), but you won't break your teeth chewing them.

Stuffed with pork, we waddled over to the line of juice ladies and each had a big glass of fresh juice. The variety of fruits and the combinations available made it very difficult to decide what we wanted. I had mango, pineapple, and orange. O had a complex concoction of fruit and vegetable extracts. We were both made happy.

Apparently others like more oomph in their juice. Look at the especial completo: beer, milk, egg, fruit, black carob syrup (full of vitamins), honey, and maca (looks like a radish, smells like butterscotch and is supposed to be good for tired blood). It's a meal in a glass.

Outside the market, there was a line of women selling little piles of vegetables from their home gardens. O came across this woman selling coca leaves and tried to get her to let us take her picture. She wouldn't take off her hat, even when several of locals joined in cajoling her. She said that she wanted glory for Jesus, not for herself.

On the way back to our hotel, we discovered the reason the streets here are so clean.

Even in the nicest neighborhoods, security precautions are intense. No one's using those mailboxes to climb over this electrified wall. Seems a little belt-and-suspenders to me, but who knows?

P.

It's A 'Quipa.

Arequipa is built on the debris field of one of the most striking volcanoes in Peru, El Misti. The volcanic stone quarried to build the city has a high ash content, leading to the nickname "the White City." About a million people live here, and in the years since the city's founding in 1540 they have developed a distinctive culture and cuisine.

Arequipa is the most beautiful city in Peru, at least according to the Arequipans. And I, for one, would not want to argue with them. The setting is certainly spectacular. The city is surrounded on three sides by volcanoes, Misti, Chachani, and Picchu Picchu. And the weather is exceptional as well. Even though the elevation is between 7,000 and 9,000 feet, temperatures are pretty constant year-round: high 70s during the day, mid 40s at night.

 

We got in to our hotel after dark, so we didn't know what to expect when we walked out of our hotel the next morning.

Looking to the left we saw Chachani framed between white-walled houses. I think we fell a little in love with Arequipa then. The wide-angle lens doesn't do justice to the way the volcanoes loom over the city. They feel large and close, and it's quite a thrill as you're walking the twisting, narrow cobblestone streets to suddenly catch an unexpected glimpse of one or another of these snow-capped giants.

And speaking of the hotel, it was a particularly lovely little B&B. Unprepossessing from the outside, but full of color and thoughtful design touches inside.

Park maintenance is done by llamas.

The Chile river runs through town. The urban area is dotted with small truck farms. The soil is very fertile and the fruits and produce are excellent.

In Peru, the main square of a city, called a zocalo in Mexico, is usually called the Plaza de Armas. Arequipa's is large and colorful, bordered by the cathedral, shops and government buildings.

It's also the site of ongoing protests against the Tia Maria copper mine. Farmers and activists oppose the mine because of concerns that runoff from the huge project will pollute Arequipa's water supply. Recently, the protests have turned violent. The poster says three dead, but as of yesterday the toll has risen to five and a state of emergency has been declared.

We were cautioned about going to Arequipa, but decided to risk it. We're glad we did. Other than these signs and some heightened police presence, everything seemed to be peaceful in Arequipa itself.

On our way to lunch, we walked through some lovely neighborhoods.

We ate at Tipika, which bills itself as serving typical Arequipan foods. I had crispy pork because that's how I roll.

O had parihuela, a Peruvian fish stew.

Later we visited the Santa Catalina monastery, a private convent that has been a part of Arequipan culture since the 1500s. Outside, the convent is simple and austere.

Inside, it's colorful and serene, with gardens and its own streets. Many of the nuns were from wealthy families and owned their own houses inside the monastery walls. Even wealthy families could not afford to provide a dowry for more than one or two daughters. It was cheaper to buy them into a religious order. And considering the traditional arranged marriage of the time, it was probably a freer life for those forced into it.

These huge pots were cut in half and used as wash tubs in the convent's laundry area. In the early days, most nuns had several slave women living with them to handle cooking and cleaning.

On the way back to our hotel, we saw this election poster. It says that with the candidate, for a clean, modern and safe district, Yanahuara (the district where our hotel is) will be "FULL HD."

For me, Arequipa is FULL HD.

P.