Setting out early for our Colca Canyon hike
To get to Cabanaconde, a ways down the rim of Colca Canyon, we board a decrepit old tour bus, costing $1.75 for the 2 hour journey. All the locals have cut in front of us in line, as usual. We have learned not to resist this inevitability (although I almost burst into tears after the fifth person pushed in front of me in Cusco waiting for the bathroom - after that I held my ground). A cardboard box of guinea pigs, a rooster, bags of rice, a huge bouquet of wilting flowers, a large cake, and other items are loaded on.
We follow a bumpy dirt road about the same width as Montana's forest service roads, at near-highway speeds, passing some very steep drop-offs. We are in the very back and my sternum starts to hurt from the hard bouncing. Dust pours in the ceiling vents. Peruvian pop music blares - each song seems to last 45 minutes and has an Asian flavor (high warbly sounds). We see soaring condors gliding on the warm afternoon updrafts through the back window.
Early the next morning we hike diagonally down cliff faces (Peru has helped desensitize me somewhat to heights) to the canyon floor, then we hike way back up another side canyon and on to two small villages, where we pay an extraordinary amount for a cold orange Gatorade. Delicious! The air is so dry we have both become hoarse, even with adequate water.
We cross a sacred plateau where cultures more ancient than Incas performed ceremonies. Finally we descend again to a true Oasis fed by natural springs. A long swim in the cold pool makes everything good again. I hardly flinch at the spider, cricket, dirt, and debris in our sheets on the rock hard bed in the little stone hut we have paid $7 to sleep in for the night.
Food in this region has been so-so. We are subsisting on white rice, savory cream of wheat-type soups, powdery Inca corn (roasted whole kernels, not fried), and loads of white bread (my least favorite food).
All the hikers eat the very bland meal together at the lodge, but the conversation is lively with Hebrew, French, Spanish, Quechua, and English interspersed. Scott gets into a debate with a Jamaican Peruvian about aliens and the Nazca lines and whether Armstrong really landed on the moon. Scott easily overcomes the young man with his scientific explanations. I chat about Israel with a Jewish biology teacher named Miri, from Tel Aviv. She invites us to her home some day. I love the quick and easy friendships formed when traveling.
We awake in the dark to try to beat the sun on the long hike out of the canyon. Two white bread buns and an egg with a cup of instant coffee are the breakfast items for today. (Instant is the only available here - even though coffee is grown here.) Even as we eat before dawn, loud Peruvian pop music is blasted at us from a nearby speaker. Scott says, "I feel like munchkins are circling around me, smiling and singing, while slowly dismembering me."
Three hard hours to the top of the canyon. The sun blazes even at 8 am. I put layer after layer of sunscreen on, but my right cheek still gets singed. Many hikers opt to ride mules back up. The Salkantay trek and hike up to Machu Picchu has helped, and we decide at noon to continue to hike up another mountain to reach other ruins from the year 600 A.D. after lunch. We both get cactus spines stuck in our legs. Local people tell us to go back - the trail is only for mules! We walk several miles on the road out of the way. It becomes apparent they have mislead us.
This is not uncommon. We have been given wrong, vague, or misleading directions many times, and other travelers report the same. You must have a guide! (Not true) This is the wrong way, you must go only on the road (not true). It is very dangerous - you must not hike alone in the canyon - people have gotten lost and died (who knows?). I think locals have an understandably ambivalent relationship with tourists and maybe have a little fun at times. Nevertheless it was worrisome to see a group of locals across the river mislead our new Australian friend, Sarah, to go the exact opposite direction she needed to go (she was way too far away for us to yell at her). They also told me the same thing but I had a map to show otherwise.
The bus ride out of the canyon was another harrowing ride. I think my years of driving a bus very carefully and slowly on the Ice has made me a terrible passenger. This bus driver tore up the dirt roads creating huge dust clouds, zoomed up on any other vehicle and laid on the horn until they pulled over, lurched around blind corners on the outside next to unobstructed cliffs, and left behind a poor woman at a bus stop who had to run in to the bathroom - all this in an old big coach bus. I see a certain daring and machismo among the always-male drivers. They usually have 2 other male helpers up front to perhaps egg them on. I have heard Peru road safety statistics are quite poor.
A verbatim sign on our Chivay hotel door reads: Please try to avoid the following people whom are well known to have led many individuals intoxicated, being arrested and serious trouble whit the police (do not be fooled by their appearances and charms.) Do not take any items from people you are not familiar with, such as cigarettes, foods, or drinks. They may contain dangerous ingredients that could cause illness, permanent damage, and intoxification.
Hmmm. Yesterday in the main square of Cusco, there were several groups of young gringos in dreads, beads, and flowy pants (plastic hippies is a term I heard bandied about here) offering some sort of homemade Bon bons for
1 sol each (about 33 cents). Probably harmless but that message above stuck with me. Perhaps a low measure of paranoia is not a bad thing.
Time to pack up. Hopefully we will have time to do a summation posting on our 36 hour journey home (8 hour layover in San Antonio, TX).
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