One of the things that I really wanted to do in Peru was to go trekking in the Andes somewhere. The obvious choice that most people do is to hike the famous Inca Trail which ends in Machu Picchu. This was difficult for us because the trail requires a permit… and usually these run out 3 months ahead of time. Besides, Ana had some serious concerns about us trekking anywhere in Peru. First of all, neither one of us had real hiking shoes. We didn’t even have walking shoes. All we had were our Keen sandals which are pretty light weight. Secondly, and more importantly, I have a history of getting altitude sickness when trekking in the high mountains. It happened when we were in East Africa, and it happened again in Bhutan, in the Himalaya. The second one was particularly fierce. Both times we were trekking with our friend Rod Shultz… which I think was the problem. Rod has long strides, and is in much better shape than I. During those hikes I tried too hard to keep pace with the group and ended up getting sick: a combination of overexertion and not enough acclimatizing. The altitude doesn’t necessarily get me sick (I’m often up in the Tahoe basin): I just need to know and stay within my physical limits. Besides, we had been spending a week in Cusco at 11,000 feet: Plenty of time to get used to high altitude.
Ultimately I compromised with Ana and found a small trek that hiked down into a canyon instead of further up to a high peak. Outside of Arequipa, there is an area called Colca Canyon where many people go for less extreme trekking experiences. We signed up for a 3 day, 2 night excursion that took us on a route which was away from most of the crowds.
day 1: This was a brutally early start. The tour bus and our guide Ivan picked us up at 3:30am for the 6 hour drive out to Colca Canyon. The bus was completely full… not a good sign (This trail might be crowded). Our first stop was a place called Cruz del Condor: an aptly named place where condors circle on the morning thermals that rise up the canyon walls. The mirador was packed full of people… mostly because tour groups come out here for day trips as well. It was hard to get a good sense of how large these birds were because of the distance separating us, but they seemed plenty big! Pretty cool to see just how effortlessly they glide without so much as a flick of the wingtip. Continuing our drive, we ended up dropping off about 2/3 of the bus along the way… Nice. These were all of the groups doing the 2 or 3 day standard routes. I was glad that we paid a bit more for the route less traveled. Ana and I were quite fortunate as we actually had a guide all to ourselves… a function of waiting until the last minute to book our trip.
The hike down into the canyon itself was easy but painful. Aside from the 1200 meter decent playing mind games on my knees, there was the little issue of our footwear that I mentioned above. You see, being a canyon and all, the path was gravelly: full of lots of sharp little rocks that inevitably ended up cutting into our toes (Click Here for a shoe shot). Hiking in sandals down a canyon wall… not a good idea. Despite this set back, we made our way to the bottom and enjoyed some spectacular scenery. Overnight, we stayed in a hut at the encampment of Llahuar (pronounced like a Jaguar), which was nice because it had a warm spring to wash off the dust and sharp pebbles accumulated over the course of the day. While here we managed to bump into a couple of fellow Michiganders (Go Blue!) fresh out of law school and killing some time abroad before joining the ranks of the professional world. Surprisingly they were about to move to our native San Francisco bay area, so we were quick to grab their contact information for (hopefully!) a future meet up some day when we head home. What wasn’t surprising was the spontaneous game of Euchre that broke out: guys vs. gals. Of course the guys came out on top with a final score of 2 to 0 before we ran out of daylight. Not a complete game till 10, but if extrapolated to its conclusion: we skunked ‘em! ;-)
day 2: Another early morning start… this time at 6:30am. Because we were doing the unconventional route, we had a full day ahead of us to hike all the way out. First stop though was a place further along the canyon floor called Paradise/Oasis. This is where most people end up on the standard trek path, as it has some nice pools to swim in fed by a fresh and clean waterfall nearby. To get here, we had to climb 600 meters up… only to descend again to get to the pools. After a swim, we had lunch and rested a few hours. We were going to need all of our strength to make a last push out of the valley before darkness fell. After a late start we barely made it out as the sun was setting… good and bad as at least we had a few bouts of shade to hike in on the way up. A tough hike for sure, but hey… a hot shower in town is not bad way to end the day.
day 3: Technically not a hiking day at all since we opted to get it all over and done with on day 2. After sleeping in late and having a nice breakfast, we met up with some of the hikers who stayed in oasis overnight and hiked up in the morning. I think the hike up might have been easier for them because of fresh legs and early morning shade… but that over a hot shower? Tough to call. In any case the bus ride back was equally brutal as the ride in, and might have taken even longer. We didn’t get back to our hostel in Arequipa until 7pm. Still, a great trip. Thanks to Ana for putting up with it, bad footwear, altitude concerns, and all.
Apart from trekking we spent most of our time in Peru’s second city of Arequipa. Arequipa is a really nice city… it just seemed a bit livelier than Cusco. Maybe it was because the weather was warmer there: I don’t know. There’s a cool monastery there in the middle of town called Santa Catalina de Siena, which is a great place to take pictures. The complex is like a city within a city, complete with its own streets and apartments. There are about 30 nuns who still make (a part of) this monastery their home.
We spent a lot of time in Arequipa shopping for treks, and it’s amazing the range of prices you get for basically the same trip. We got anywhere from $20(2 day) to $200(3 day). The biggest correlation to steep price seemed to be whether the shop was recommended in one of the guidebooks. Amazing.
Check out the photos of our trek here: http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/Arequipa
…and here is a map of Arequipa and a map of Colca Canyon.
Ok… Argentina is big. Really big. 27 hours and much of my sanity later, we arrived in the city of Salta on the western frontier. Normally we try to avoid travelling for so long, but it turns out that there isn’t much to see between Iguazu and the west of the country. Flights were incredibly expensive, so we took a bus… A brutally long bus. Thankfully we have the laptops, so at least we were able to watch some movies in English. 
Aside from the city, there are a ton of outdoor places to see around Salta. Several incredible canyons are nearby and we took advantage of the proximity to sign up for a tour while out here. The one that we visited was called Quebrada del Toro, named after the Toro River that flows through it. The drive through here was amazing. This region is rich in various mineral deposits, and the hills and valleys in the area reflect this by glowing in reds, greens, whites, yellows, and browns: the colors of the various oxidized metals (iron, copper, borax, uranium, etc.). En route, we visited a large salt flat appropriately named Salinas Grandes. This was a fun visit for taking photos, as the flat expanse makes for good forced-perspective shots, tricking the human eye. Apparently there are two different types of salt flats, and they are actually called different things… at least in the Spanish language. A Salta (I think…) is a salt lake created solely form dried ocean water. Salt mined from here does not get replenished. A Salina on the other hand, is formed from a volcanic uprising… as such salt mined here is actually replaced and re-grown from below! Pretty cool. Because the salts come from a volcano, there are many more minerals contained within besides sodium-chloride. Much of the salt is actually mined for borax or potassium… and is poisonous to us fragile humans. We were careful not to put our hands in our mouth after touching the stuff. What’s cool here is that the entire bed is only solid on the surface. Dig down a foot or so and you’ll inevitably hit water. The salt miners here dig vast networks of rectangular salt pools and just leave them be… the volcanoes below do the rest to replenish the salt from below.
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