He Terminado el Cañon del Colca!

On Saturday morning 3:30am the tour van came to pick us up in front of Juana´s house.  We jumped into the van with 9 other hikers.  Took the 3 hour drive to Colca.  We first stopped at the Condor Sanctuary where we got to see the birds in action.  Condors are the largest of all birds that have the ability to fly and have a wingspan up to 10 feet.  They lay one egg each year and are loyal to their mate forever, just like penguins! At the Cruz del Condor the altitude was approximately 3960 feet.  We ran down to the area where the Condors flew right over toursists heads, and took some pictures.  We walked back up the stairs to meet the van and I was heaving.  This is when I realized the hike would not be an easy one, with such high altitude levals.  Took another hour drive to the beginning of the hike and then it began.  We walked about 3 hours down the canyon and during that time my hands and fingers started bloating and we´re red.  I thought I was going to spontaneous combust. Chewing coca leaves, we crossed the river on the bottom of the canyon and then started upwards once again.  We got to the middle of the canyon and stopped at an hermoso pueblo! Here we had almuerso which consisted of papas fritas y arroz y cardne santado y aji y sopa w vegetables.  They cooked it over a stove with a fire burning on the bottom.  After almuerso, our tour guide  said “Vamos chicos!” and we were off again.  We passed through thousands of Andenes! If all of the Andenes were working in only Colca Canyon, they would be able to feed all of South America. WHich i think is purely amazing and fascinating!! We hiked up and down, so many times i thought i wasn´t going to make it, but we kept having to trek on through! I´m not going to lie it was INTENSE!!! THe tour guide showed us natural bug repellant, cactus fruits (which were muy rico!) and showed us natural lipstick or bug blood which he smeared on his face to look like an ancient inca.  We arrived at the Oasis at around 5¨:30pm jumped right into the fresh water pool and rested a bit.  Dinner was around 7:00pm and when we walked outside of our little huts with dirt floors in which we stayed we saw THOUSANDS of stars.  There were more dark spots than light.  There were more stars i have ever seen in the sky, this is because the oasis had no electricity what so ever.  For la cena we had cream sopa y spaghetti with marinara seafood sauce.  I went right to sleep and woke up with tons of misquito bites.  Then we began the hike up and I was dying so quickly.  I thought we were about half way there and then he told us that we were only 15% of the way up.  So me and jasmine decided we would get mules.  These mules carried us up all the way to the top.  Even though i didn´t finish the hike up on foot, it was very grueling and i am proud of myself for even getting how far i have on the hike!  We passed grande andenes y a lot of canals.  There was a long canal that crossed our path and went to the pueblos in colca.   The tour guide also told us that most of our hike consisted of what was here 500 years ago, in the midst of the Inca Empire.  We went to hot springs for an hour after this and it felt so good! This was the most intense physically demanding thing I have ever done but i must admit im so glad we went!  18 km up and down! Good practice for Machu Picchu! He also told us that Machu Picchu will be easier than Colca because we do less distance per day, which i am so happy about! But i also know that Machu will not be easy.  I just bought a book written by Hiram Bingam “the lost inca society and the builders of machu picchu.”  SO i am learning more about machu picchu the people and their cultivation and agriculture.  Anyways,  Today when i woke up my whole body hurt and am covered in misquito and flea bites because of the dog that is in the house.  So i am hurting and itching everywhere it looks like i have chicken pox! haha but really, i am loving peru more and more and learning each day!

Today we learned how to recycle paper and were doing this for about 6 horas.  I want to bring this back to the University of Redlands, and maybe set up a day where people help recycle paper out on the quad! I am so excited to go back and share with other people all that I have learned so far here in Peru taught by Yachay Wasi.  Not only am i learning about Yachay Wasi and Juana and the culture but I learning so much more than I thought I´d learn about myself. Suprising si? Si!