Day Three - Colca Canyon, Civay, and Arequipa

 Condors, and only condors can get me up in the morning at 5. We got up early with promises of seeing the condors, but we still did some things along the way. First stop was a little town in Colca that was obviously just filled with tourists. There were women there with hawks and llamas for the tourists to hold and take photos with.. for a small fee of course. I couldn't miss that oppurtunity! I of course paid my 1 sol to hold a hawk! We also bought snacks for the road in that town and looked at a church that was made of white volcanic rock. Very beautiful!!

     The landscapes that we saw on the drive to Colca Canyon were just amazing. Like huge mountains with valleys that go for miles. Just gorgeous! One interesting thing we saw were the ancient tombs of Incas. They just look like holes in the side of the mountain, but there used to be bones and mummies inside (all in museums now.) The Incas believed that when a person dies, they are reborn, so they were mummified, or burried in a fetal position. I think that's why the holes are so tiny. When we finally arrived at Colca Canyon, it was so worth the wait. It's the deepest canyon in the world and the view is like nothing you've ever seen, and nothing you can see unless you actually go there, because the pictures do no justice to the real thing. The condors were so much bigger than I had imagined. I knew they were big, but they looked so humungous!!

The huge wonderful Condor

Lovely view of the canyon

    When we left we drove to and stopped at many little vendors, my favorite was the cactus fruit. It's called Tuna in Spanish, and I ate a bright pink, sweetish one and a super sour green one! Next we went to Chivay just to see the Plaza de Armas and the churchs and tours like that. Chivay was very pretty, despite the low set barbed-wire fences!! I did run into one.. There was a little boy with a llama there that was very persistant about recieving his tips. He was so cute that I gave him some money, but said, "this is for your llama."

   We left Colca and got back to Arequipa that night. It was dark when we saw the plaza de Armas of Arequipa, but it was all lit up and beautiful. I think that's pretty much all of our third day!

L