Chivay is the jumping off point for everything Colca, and is a small town of 2000, but is bustling with tourists passing through. Chivay is a 3 hour bus ride from Arequipa, and GVI had a project there last year, but was unable to continue it this school year. We left Arequipa at 3:30am - yes, a.m. and arrived for a breakfast buffet early, after which we split from the trekking group. After we checked into our hostal and had a bit of a rest, we were off for an hour walk to Inca ruins close by. It was a beautiful sunny day with fantastic views and it wasn't long before the guide, Jessica, was joining in our fun of teasing each other and a lot of laughs.
After our "strenuous" hike and a lunch, we were off to the hot springs located about 3km from town. It was great to soak here, and the weather clouded over a bit, so it wasn't too hot to stay in the water for a long time. I had the strangest "relaxing" massage here: I'm glad I said not to be too hard, cause I can't imagine what it would have been like if she had continued the way she started! This "massage" included very rapid hands going over my back, followed by slapping! Yes, slapping! It was anything but relaxing!
That night for dinner we went to a place that had traditional music and a dance show. It was great to see the costumes and hear the stories behind the dances. The women continue to wear their traditional dress on a daily basis, and if not the whole outfit, at least their hats. There are two different indigenous groups from this region and their hats are quite different, indicating which group they are from. Their outfits are beautiful skirts with a lot of embroirdery and ribbons, a blouse with an overvest, again highly embroirdered, and sometimes a shawl that is used to keep warm, carry things or carry kids.
After dinner, we were off to the Irish pub! That didn't last for more than a single nightcap, as we were exhausted from the early wake-up and activities of the day.
Day 2 we were up fairly early and I was of course awake earlier than others. So, I went wandering around town, and took a chance and ate from a street vendor. My breakfast was alpaca meat with potatoes. I sat and ate across from her and visited with her and her daughter who was also having breakfast.
After breakfast we headed out for another hike across the river and up on the hillside to some Incan Ruins. Although most of this was uphill, we took our time and really enjoyed the walk up. We played around at the ruins for some time, and came back down to a road and continued around in a loop back to the village. This part of the walk seemed to drag on forever, ending with a 20 minute hike back up from river. On the way we passed a very fancy resort and then the hotsprings we were to return to after lunch. The hostal prepared lunch for us, and after a short rest, we were off to the hotsprings. These hotsprings were right ont he river, and the pools were made from river stones -- nothing like the developed springs we had visited the day before. This time, Jessica, our guide joined us in the water, and we had a great time singing different sounds in various languages. Mariko, from Australia and of Japanese heritage, taught us a childrens song with hand movements (ok, so we were able to repeat after her -- I certainly don't remember the words now!), and then we sang "Brother John" in English, French and Spanish, and then sang two more Spanish songs to the same tune! An Austrian couple joined us for a time, and we heard it in German too!
That night's dinner was at the hostal, and we started with kareoke! What fun! And the words to the songs were pretty funny, as even though they were in English, they obviously had not been written by an native English speaker. We had a fun night of playing "spoons" and drinking wine. This was a great group to be with and really made the weekend.
On our last day we then headed up further along the canyon's edge to view the condors. Some flew overhead and they were awesome looking, but, at their distance, it was hard to see that they were that much larger than eagles. We met up with the other group who had hike back out of the canyon, and together we headed back to Cusco.
And the link to all the Colca Canyon photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/margie510/ColcaWeekend#
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