Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

What to say... 
First off despite having regular access to internet, the connection usually isn´t good enough to upload long videos. I will likely have to add videos (like condors and dancing) to posts at a later date. If you REALLY want to see them, I am sure you can youtube, or check back later. 

And now for the travel...When I first arrived in Arequipa I was caught by the dry heat of the desert.  Though at a much higher altitude than many of the desert cities of the north, Arequipa is HOT. Similar to other desert cities though it was unsettlingly dusty. Beyond this my first impression was that the city seemed vast and I was unsure how to navigate it effectively. 

Tourist Central 

Many cities in the world have distinctive neighborhoods or zones: old and new, commercial and residential, business district and artsy neighborhood... 

Arequipa concentrates all the tourists into  the older part of the city, and then restricts access to other areas by neglecting to tell you about them.  Tourists are issued a map of the old town which is roughly the city center, but other possible areas of interest are just arrows pointing off map with no indication of how far.  

I have seen this pattern in many places in the world (Avignon, Marrakech, Cartagena) but it always leaves me feeling unfulfilled. Like have I really seen the city or just the tourist zone?

If a tourist visited just downtown Minneapolis or St Paul, have they seen the city? 

And Arequipa's center is GORGEOUS! White volcanic rock buildings, colonial architecture, convents, churches, markets, arched walkways, parks and squares, cobble stone roads, pedestrian malls, art galleries, craft shops... Not to mention the people. 

But after walking around the tourist area for a few days, I needed to see something else, so I got lost. 

Getting lost is one of my favorite things to do while traveling, you just walk in the wrong direction for awhile and then see if you can find your way back.  By this means I got to see terraced farms in the middle of the city. I got to see vet shops for alpacas. I got to see the real arequipa market. I got to eat some delicious watermelon and pineapple. I got to see where the city meets the country. I got to see some churches, some grocery stores, some gas stations, some houses, some mansions, some parks, some parking lots, some offices, some galleries, some abandoned lots, some rundown buildings, some construction of new roads and houses, some pharmacies, some schools. Basically I saw how the actual people live in Arequipa even if it wasn't all exciting(THAT WAS AN AWESOME PARKING LOT!), it's important to see. Especially the guy who was playing oldschool Nintendo on the side of the road. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the parking lots or anything else. Picture normal life, now add lots of dusty sand(and a guy playing Nintendo on the side of the road). 

Highlights of the touristy center

-San Francisco Church 
 I just had a really lovely moment here.

-Plaza de Armas/city dance record
The central park is lovely and surrounded by beautiful buildings.
I had the special treat of being in Arequipa during an anniversary celebration which included concerts and events. One of the events was an attempt to get 2000 people to do a choreographed celebratory dance together. IT WAS AWESOME!

-Convent of Santa Catalina
One of the main tourist attractions is this cloistered convent (still active). For hundreds of years women have been locking themselves away from th public and living a life of contemplation and service. The convent is like a small neighborhood in itself, there are several streets lined with living spaces. Most of them were pretty basic, but with beautiful color schemes. 
 

-Walking around at night and taking pictures is one of my favorite activities. Arequipa was quite cold at night, but there was still some hustle and bustle on the streets. The beautiful architecture was even better at night.

Colca Canyon 

After hearing that the canyon treks weren't all that great I decided to take the easy route and went for the full day tour. 

Here is a break down of the tour

The full day tour starts at 3 am. So I woke up around 2 and tried not to wake everyone else in my hostel room. 

The first few hours is spent cramped in a small bus freezing as you slowly assend to 4,900 meters above sea level. The tour company gave us all blankets but I could still hear people's teeth chattering in the pre-dawn cold. Everyone was trying to sleep, but sleep is impossible when you are shivering that much. 

Around 7 we stopped for breakfast, the idea of warm food and drink sounded like heaven but with my first cup of coffee the contrast between the warmth of my palm and the freezing of the back of my hand was like limbo.  I knew it would warm up soon, but when? To get my body going I ate 3 or 4 rolls, drank 2 cups of coffee and a cup of tea all in about 20 minutes.  At breakfast I finally spoke to the woman who was next to me on the bus, she was (is) an ecuadorian architect, and she was whiter than me - which sort of weirded me out - fair skin is considered beautiful here, so I imagine she doesn't sunbathe a whole lot. 

Our next stop was at a lower altitude, and by this time the sun had come out, but I still bought a hat from a local craft vender who's sale pitch was "it's reversible".  I bartered her down about 35 cents and felt silly for it. 

At this stop (Maca) was a collection of craft venders, a small church, a woman who sold tea (yes please) and a number of people who would let you take a picture with their eagle or llama for the equivalent of about 70 cents. Here is the woman from Ecuador

Yup that's a bird on her head (she was not happy about it). 

I went with "no I don't want a raptor near my face" but the lady who owned them was basically nuzzling with it. 

From there we went on to the Cruz del Condor (the condor lookout place).

As I have said in a previous post the Andean condor is both a spiritual symbol for the Andean peoples AND endangered.  On the way we heard there were about 38 in the whole area of Colca Canyon. We all found out a little about their height, weight, wingspan etc... But perhaps the most interesting thing is that they mostly eat carcasses, and will often wait a few days to let rot (yummy!).  As we drove along the road, the canyon opened up, going from heavily terraced farmland to kind of terraced farm canyon, then to rocky cliffs. And then we saw the condors. 

The guide said we got lucky, sometimes the tours don't even get to see them... We saw about 15-20. 

It was hard to tell how big they were because they are somewhat camouflaged by the canyon, but sometimes they would soar really close and show you their dark underside and they just looked massive. 

Our 45 minutes at the look out point felt like 10... But the condors tend to go back to their nests or perches around 10 so we were off to our next destination.

Here are some pics of just the canyon:

On the way to lunch we got a flat tire, then another in short succession. I had been warned about this because the day before the same thing had happened. We sat around making jokes and getting to know each other (there were about 18 of us in the bus) while the drivers changed the tires. 

Then we went to some more craft stops and look out points where you could really see the Colca Valley and the entrance to the canyon. The terraces have been around for 500+ years. There is no debate that the Incas relocated people to this area, but there is a debate about whether they merged with or assimilated the local peoples.  

The people are famous for growing cactus fruit of both the sweet and sort variety, one of the local treats is the sour fruit icecream. 

Before lunch there was a visit to a local hot springs- but before you go picturing running water or natural looking ponds, remember temperature control. The baths as always were just warm pools. 

I opted out and instead took pictures around the area, 

and saw more birds though I couldn't tell if they were condors or eagles... I will let you judge. 

Lunch was a buffet of foods that were only somewhat identifiable. The group of us made a joke that no matter what it looked like you were eating alpaca (which is the local meat of choice). Alpaca pizza, alpaca noodles, alpaca jello... I ate chicken and rice (I mean alpaca chicken and alpaca rice).

The afternoon included two major stops and a lot of attempts to sleep off the early waking. 

Both stops were in the national park (Salinas y Aguada Blanca Reserve) we drove through in the freezing morning. It was a beautiful but somewhat desolate landscape(still brutally cold).  All around us mountains, active and inactive volcanos. Additionally hundreds of small rock piles made by tourists used to commemorate their visit and make wishes.

The other stop, further down the desolate landscape to an area where there was slighltly more vegetation and llamas and alpacas! 

The rest of the tour we slept, waking up in Arequipan traffic and getting to see parts of the city we were not invited to. 

Under the grey gray lima sky

Lima thoughts

The Historic Parts

Lima is split into a ton of little districts or neighborhoods, each of which has it's own little government, police and emergency force... But there is a big overarching Lima government of the metropolitan area housed in the historic center, right next to the building that houses the national government, and the cathedral and the former home of the archbishop. 

Government Palace (above)

Cathedral (below)

A lot of these big historic yellow buildings are the city government offices.

This is the historic center of Lima, surrounded by other historic buildings, many of which are falling apart or being rented by stores to sell goods. This area is highly secure with tons of police walking through or guarding the office buildings. 

The above were taken in an indoor market near the center.

The rest of the city sort of radiates out from the center, I have been visiting some of these neighborhoods the last few days. 

Outside of the historic old center but still in the downtown area are the 1900s buildings that look like vaults with their big gray or brown stone exteriors and with wood or gold doorways housing fancy stores and cafés inside for the well to do(reminds me of Herods). These buildings remind me of typical downtown buildings in the US. 

Fancy renovated interiors eh?

Fancy downtown exteriors eh?

Beyond this area is the sort of typical downtown scenes old buildings, restaurants and stores, warehouses and a few parks. Old churches and small plazas that have been surrounded by larger buildings that take up more and more space. 

The historic china town is kind of like a big outdoor market with tons of people shopping for cheap goods. I felt a little weird pulling out my camera just because of the amount of people around me- but I did get this one shot in a less crowded area. 

Other than the abundance of goods and people, Lima's china town wasn't all that different from other parts of the city. I guess I did see Chinese healers, astrologists and giant snails for sale... But  other than that it's mostly just painted pavilions and a few Chifa places with dimsum and ducks in the window.

On the way into downtown I stopped at two of the big museums but they were pretty disappointing. Each only had one exhibition going on and seemed to be closed for renovations beyond that. 

One of the exhibitions was on the history of Lima. The other was on a local archeological site. So similar to what I have been seeing elsewhere. Both of these museums were housed in a large park. Along with the Italian art museum which I didn't go into - but it looks like this:

Foggy Impressions

Lima is known for it's fog/pollution/perpetual cloud cover- especially in the winter(which is now).

One of the other downtown neighborhoods I walked through reminded me of my childhood impression of Minneapolis. 

When I was a kid Minneapolis was Gotham city, it was this big scary gray, dark noir place where if you walked down the wrong alley your parents would be killed in front of you. Minneapolis was dirty and confusing, it was always gray, it was so big you couldn't see more than a block ahead of you. It was for tough people, real hardcore people lived in Minneapolis not nice warm people... Of course as I grew I recognized this was an inaccurate depiction,  it started with little havens in the dark, places I would go and it would be exciting and comfortable and in that small place I could have my mind blown... Usually these were concert venues.  The dark and scary perception didn't disappear overnight, the scary area dwindled over time until I realized that Minneapolis wasn't very scary at all. 

Between the dirty old buildings and the fog, I started getting the impression at one point today that I had entered a sketchy Gotham city neighborhood.  The graffiti increased, the garbage increased, the darkness seemed to envelope everything... And I started walking a lot faster, and avoiding looking at things like a tourist. I put my "don't mess with me" face on and took up a little more space.  

After a few minutes I realized I was reacting to the winter fog unreasonably.  I looked at the faces of the people around me and realized they weren't putting their tough faces on.  Sure they were all wearing dark colors but it's winter here, they just had their winter coats on.  The children weren't worrying about getting from point a to point b without being messed with.  The stores were wide open and welcoming. 

I've been told Lima is dangerous and scary... I'm sure it is... But I wonder of the fog makes people more paranoid than they need to be.

The Wealthy Neighborhoods

I already wrote a bunch about Miraflores, but Miraflores is bordered by two other areas I have visited

San Isidro is the business district of Lima and like any business area  I saw a lot of big office buildings and fancy hotels and country club looking restaurants.  Even some of the fast food places looked more posh than normal. I did however walk into a couple of places that looked like malls from the outside but were pretty bleak on the inside - full of vacant spaces(reminded me of knollwood mall). One repeated pattern I have seen in some older and smaller shopping centers is that they are mixed office/commercial. So there will be stores and then like a call center and then a typical office with cubicles. The workers go to the food court for lunch along with the mall shoppers. I think these places look strange because it feels like you can see the inner workings of the office, but I guess it's just normal here. I found San Isidro to be rather boring and didn't take any pictures.

The other neighborhood I went to briefly is called Barranco.

Known as a sort of bohemian place, it's got a lot of art and a lot of music clubs at night I guess. To me it felt like a small town in the middle of the city. Like turn the corner and you are on Hopkins Main Street- Small one level cafés and antique shops. I am hoping to go back and chill there in the next few days. It seemed much more quiet than the rest of the city, a good place to do some journaling.