Final Week in Peru – Arequipa, Colca Canyon and Lima v2

We finished off our stay in Peru with a visit to the historic city of Arequipa and the small town of Yanque near Colca Canyon, the Grand Canyon of Peru.  In Arequipa, we visited a museum which tells the story behind several frozen bodies found on peaks around Peru and Chile.  The highlight of the exhibit was the almost perfectly preserved body of a child who had been sacrificed to the gods by the Incas on top of a neighboring 20,000+ foot tall mountains.  The remains and sacrifice and burial sites were discovered recently when glaciers melted on one of Peru’s volcanoes.  It is extraordinary that the Incas climbed these tall snowy peaks so long ago without any modern climbing gear – especially the children who were typically about 10 year old.

Our travels to Colca Canyon took us over 16,000 foot passes and we stayed again at 14,000 feet.  The Peruvians believe coca, which is from the same plant that cocaine is made from, is an amazing cure for many aliments, including altitude sickness.  We agree with them and drank a lot of coca tea and ate coca candies and cookies during our high altitude journeys.

The canyon was splendid, but next time we want to hike to the bottom in order to fully see its beauty.  We had hoped to witness the condors gliding through the canyon with their 12-foot wingspan, but rainy weather kept them in their nests.  Our canyon trip was enhanced because of many wonderful people we met, two of whom – Korel & Gilda – we will visit later in the trip in Turkey.  Our hotel, Killawasi Lodge, was also wonderful.

We rented an apartment in Lima for our last few days and pretended that we were expats.  We caught up on laundry, email and rest.  Next stop Chile!  We’ll be there from February 4th until March 8th.