The Jealous Condor in Arequipa

I thought about buying a plane ticket back to Cusco for sixty US dollars. I thought it could be quicker and more comfortable that way but then I thought about my promise to avoid planes by all means to get to Trujillo. So for twenty dollars I bought my bus ticket. Another twenty-two hours. I knew it was going to be a long ride, specially since I was going back to Cusco, but I couldn’t go anywhere north from Puerto. Back in Cusco the next day I got lunch and ice cream and walked around a bit. I left my big backpack at the bus station since I decided to leave for Arequipa the same day at seven thirty at night. Next morning I woke up in Arequipa. I looked for a hostel at five in the morning and after several attempts I got a good one very close to the main square. Manfred, the owner, was very helpful. I checked in and knowing that if I went to be I had fallen asleep I called my uncle Pedro who knew I was coming because I had called him the night before from Cusco and went to have breakfast to his house. I saw him after almost nineteen years, his wife Raquel and my cousins who already had kids. I spent the rest of the day there and later on I retired to the hostel. I was really tired and I had booked a tour to go to Colca to watch the condors next day. Time to sleep. The experience with this tour company was a lot different than the one in Cusco. They had a van picking all the tourists and most important they were on time. The tour consisted of going to Chivay the first day and then go to the Colca canyon to watch these huge birds fly. We stopped in several places before getting to Chivay. We saw the back part of Misti, the dormant volcano, and the Chachani. We also saw the Ubinas, the volcano that few weeks before was throwing up some ashes and that made some of the near towns to be evacuated. There were several vans bringing tourists to the Colca. We got also to the 4,900 meters (16,076 feet) above sea level. They advised us also to chew some coca leaves. We did it but getting there on a car was a little more manageable. It was definitely colder but we were there for a short period of time. Just to take pictures of the Ampato volcano where a mommy Inca was discovered on 1995. When we descended to Chivay we had lunch and then walked around until five on the afternoon to go to the Calera hot springs. They had an indoor pool and an outdoor one. We definitely wanted to be on the outdoors one so we can see the sky and the mountains around us. There were a lot of people on the pools too so you get to know some people, hear their stories and perhaps get a drink with them. After the hot springs we were taken back to the hostel and then to a restaurant for dinner and to watch a folkloric dance. We drunk and danced and decided to go to another pub afterwards. A coffee or lunch could be a way to mingle with people but alcohol is for sure a more relaxed and happier way to do it. But I may be wrong.
We woke up at five in the morning and went to the Colca Canyon. We stopped on a couple of towns on the way but we all wanted to get to the point where these unusual big birds live. The condor is a huge scavenger bird that lives on the Andes. There is even a folkloric song “The Condor Pasa” (The Condor passes) which its tone I recognized once on one of Simon’s album, but I can not recall the name of the English version. When we got to the Condor Cross there were already several people taking pictures and filming, everybody was just sitting and looking up, down and sideways to catch the best angle of this animal who looks beautiful when it flies and glides but it looks really scary and perhaps even ugly when it stands. They said we got lucky to have seen about five at the time. Sometimes they don’t come out. After taking pictures we did a small trek around the Canyon, at the top, to finish our trip. Three of the girls were doing a longer hike down to the Canyon where they were to spend the night. So they didn’t come back to Arequipa with us. There is also rafting that can be done in the Canyon but it needs to be arranged from Arequipa as well. I had decided to stay only three days there so I spent the last day visiting downtown Arequipa and the museums. Juanita, the mommy found in Ampato, is a must see. This Inca girl who was about fourteen was sacrificed to the Apus, the mountains, about five hundred years ago. It was discovered by chance, frozen by the snow of the volcano Ampato, and has remained very well preserved in Peru. You can see her skin still there but a little burned by the snow. Her fingernails and hair are intact. It gives the sensation of a wax doll. They named her Juanita after the anthropologist who discovered her, Johan Reinhard.
Before leaving Arequipa I also went to old neighborhoods where mom told me about. She was born and grew up in Arequipa so I even though those places she mentioned I am sure don’t look the way she knew them I decided to take a peak anyways. I saw the volcano Misti again but this time its front, the way the city of Arequipa looks at it everyday.
Two nights before I met with one of cousins as well. Guillermo. We had dinner together. During our conversation while eating llama, ostrich and beef dinner he kept looking to my eyes like if he was trying to figure out why I had resigned to my job and I was traveling on a very cheap budget. I just kept looking to his eyes, while he talked, like if I was trying to get him to tell me I was crazy. We cheered our glasses one last time and heard him saying: “I am jealous”.