Today (3rd August) is our final day in canyon territory as tomorrow we leave for Cusco.
As had become usual for us we got up at 4.30am and the drove part way to the condor crossing point in Colca canyon. We stopped a few kilometers early so we could walk in the dawn light towards the condors.
I made the mistake of not putting my over trousers on not realising it was going to be below 0 C so had a very cold first half an hour whilst I power walked along trying to get warm.
I was not they only one waiting for the sun to warm me up. On a rock, waiting for the morning sun was a family of 3 chinchillas.
A bit further along we heard lots of chirping. Our guide Maria said they were parrots. A little further ahead we saw around 10 bright green parrots warning themselves in the morning sun. Sitting on the next rock was a woodpecker shouting warnings for us to move away from her nest. We also saw lots of humming birds flying around and hovering. Off into the distance we caught our first glimpse of the day of the condors doing test flights.
The condors continued their test flights in pairs (condors pair up for life) for about another hour until the winds were just right and they all decided to come out. All in all we saw about 20 condors in a little over an hour. Given the total population of condors in this area is 35 this was a very good day!
By 9am there were just a few condors left. Our guide said these were just flying for fun and would not be going hunting. They kept sweeping over our heads - I think they just liked all the attention they were getting! It was then that two of the remaining condors started fighting.
After the last few condors left we ate our breakfast looking back at where we had walked earlier that morning. In the distance we saw lots of dust rising; it was another rock slide, this time not far from where we had been walking just a few hours before!
This region is right on a plate boundary with the nearest village suffering minor earthquakes almost daily. The most recent damage consists of a land slip of several meters completely destroying the road, now a track between tarmaced road sections over the landslide.
Just before 12.00 we arrived back in Chivay for lunch. Once again we stuffed ourselves with llama.
After lunch we started our journey back to Arequipa. On our way we reached our highest point yet, 3950m. It was during this party of the journey that our guide started to suffer from altitude sickness. Fortunately we had both acclimatised and this was the first day that neither of us had a headache!
Just after the highest point we saw a mum winding llama wool with her two daughters sitting by the side of the road in traditional dress. They had spent the morning tending to their llamas and were now relaxing in the sun for a rest so we stopped to say hello. We have gave our remaining goodies to the two children Jude and Abigail, who were both really sweet :-)
Finally at 6ish we arrived in Arequipa. We spent the remainder of the evening relaxing and watching the sunset. For dinner I tried another Peruvian specialty cuy, more commonly known as guinea pig. I requested mine without the head but still has its little paws attached. It tasted remarkably like chicken, although nowhere near as much meat so quite a meagre meal, but tasty none-the-less!
At 8.30 we boarded our overnight bus to Cusco where once again they videoed everyone on the bus - I assume this its in case of an accident or hijacking they have a record as to who actually boarded the bus. We then settled down for our 10 hour overnight journey.
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