Friday, June 5, 2015

6/4/15: Trekking the Colca Canyon, Day 2

Today was even tougher than yesterday, if that's possible. It was made most challenging by the fact that my legs were so, incredibly sore - every step I took made me want to sit back down and go to sleep until forever was over. Of course, no such luck. I ended up trekking the three hours up the side of the mountain (about 5 km and 1100 m in altitude) starting at 5 am, but I was really proud that I arrived second in our group! Good enough for me anytime.






We were able to rest at the top of the mountain for a little bit while waiting for everyone else to catch up. After that, we walked to breakfast, which thankfully included some scrambled eggs in addition to the bread and jam that I've been having for forever.

We stopped by a nice, little but very pretty church as well as some hot springs!




We also saw the mountain that serves at the source of the Amazon River, Mismi Mountain.


Lunch was a buffet of largely Peruvian food, which was surprisingly good. We then headed back towards Arequipa, making a few stops along the way. The first was an alpaca farm!




The next was one of the highest points in the Canyon, which was freezing/snowing, but a great place to see all the volcanoes around the area!



The rest of the time, I was mainly too tired to look out the van window and fell asleep instead, but the views were similar to what I had seen coming up.

When I got back to Arequipa, I went to the Plaza Meyor to buy some food and snacks for tomorrow in Puno. Apparently there was some little festival going on because the streets all around the Plaza were covered in colored sand art, and the main cathedral had a festival set up too. I didn't stick around long enough to figure out exactly what was happening, though.





I came back to the hostel and just relaxed for the rest of the day. I hope I'm not too sore tomorrow, and even if I am there isn't too much to see in Puno anyways, so I've heard! Either way, I'm glad I did the trek because I know for sure that I have a mind that can make my body do things that I don't think it could otherwise. I'm catching a bus tomorrow morning to Puno, and I will be finishing up my time in Peru there before heading to Bolivia! Both nervous and a little excited for that.

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