Week 22: The Wild Rover

Up until now I had managed to avoid backtracking completely. However there were a few things I had missed in the south of Peru which I kept telling myself I would do on my return trip. The trouble is, when I get to go away again, I will inevitably want to visit new countries and places. So I sucked it up and got on the bus back to Lima. Originally we were going to do 2 overnight buses in a row but we decided to stay one night in Lima.

Awesome library at San Francisco church

On our arrival we obviously went in search of food as we had arrived so early, and found a good cafe which was pretty popular, that I had noticed the last time I was in Lima. We had some excellent food before setting about doing something a bit cultural.

We visited the catacombs at Lima, in the church of San Francisco, where there were basically a shed ton (thousands) of skeletons, and an extremely awesome library. The really big books in the foreground are made out of llama skin. In the evening we stayed up for a couple of drinks and made some friends. (Some of us more than others... mentioning no names... Steve...)

The following day Steve and I went to the cinema to see Twelve Years A Slave - it was in English - just because I love going to the cinema and wanted to do something normal. The effect was slightly ruined by the fact that in the very quiet, reflective moments, we could hear the screams from another film showing next door. When we got back to the hostel Gemma told us she had booked us in to the "Wild Rover" for when we arrived in Arequipa. Initially I thought she was joking, because it's a pretty big party hostel, but no. That evening the 5 of us (we had picked up Trey, an American from our trek in Huaraz) took a taxi to the bus station, which was a bit stressful as we thought we were going to miss the bus. Which was pretty silly of us, because of course the bus was about 40 minutes late.

Not a bad place to break down

Undoubtedly we had chicken and rice for dinner, although I have probably blocked it from my memory. It was a real treat that they played a video of Belgian singer Helmut Lotti over and over again. I particularly liked waking up to it as I had only heard it for 5 hours the previous evening and really wanted to lsiten to it a bit more. The journey was pretty uneventful until about 8am when a tyre blew. It was a surprisingly nice stop as we were on the pan-american highway and only a couple of hundred metres from the sea, with the desert on the other side.

After 19 or so hours we eventually got to Arequipa, and settled into our hostel. That evening we had a few drinks in the bar. The rum was truly awful and I am not entirely sure they had any right to call it rum as I won't mention who (me) but someone was actually sick. Believe it or not. Grim.

At the start of the trek

The next day we had a day of relaxing/eating nutella. The food at the hostel was pretty good actually, particularly their "Irish Stew." And the chips weren't bad either. We made plans for the following day to start our trip to Colca Canyon, possibly the second deepest canyon in the world with a depth of 4160m (13,650ft). 6 of us left the hostel early in the morning to go the bus station. There were 5 of us from the Santa Cruz trek - myself, Matt, Gemma, Steve and Trey, and then we picked up another straggler, Harry, who Steve had met before.

A pretty nice sunset at the oasis

It was a 6 hour bus ride from Arequipa, on which I almost wet myself. We had decided not to do the "conventional route" as apparently 800 people do it a day. (We saw about 5.) So from the village of Cabanaconde we made the toas-smashing descent to the "oasis" of Sangalle at 1300m in a couple of hours, and everyone got a fairly early night after a few games of cards and dinner.

It didn't feel like paradise by the time we reached it

Crossing the river in the morning

In the morning we rose pretty early, had pancakes for breakfast and then began the ascent from 1900m to the village of Malata at 2450m. It was good to set off early in the shade, and about 20 minutes before reaching the village to see the sun flooding the valley. From the village we walked across for a stop at a viewpoint where we scoffed lots of fruit and biscuits, then down to the tiny lodge at Llahuar (2130m). After a hot day of walking in the sun the cool river was extremely welcoming. To make it even better there was a hot spring right next to the river, and we had the whole place to ourselves from our arrival at midday until about 1800. While everybody else went to lunch I had some time to just reflect on my surroundings and enjoy the river (read: skinny dipping). In the evening after dinner I donated some immodium to an American girl. (I've now gone through 2 packets and haven't taken any - they have all been donated to other people!)

The sun about to flood the canyon

A view back on the terraces

In the hot springs

Taking an unconventional shortcut

Loving life

Once again in the morning we had an early start for the final ascent of the trip, 1160m back up to Cabanaconde to get the bus back to Arequipa. Steve almost fell off a cliff which was a bit worrying, but apart from that it was just a bit of a slog to get back up. I couldn't really find my rhythm so struggled a bit. Once we were at the top it was still a bit of a walk to get back to the village, which seemed like an age, especially as we had run out of food (but thankfully not water, as one of us had the hindsight to buy a couple of extra litres... which everybody else drank).

More river

Once we finally got back to the village we bought our bus tickets and then went to a restaurant to see if we had time to eat. Of course they told us that yes there would be plenty of time for us to have lunch. Of course they did. We didn't. I ended up dropping half my chips on the pavement as we ran for the bus, and having to eat my spaghetti out of a takeaway box as we bumped along an unpaved road. However it was very welcome, just a bit messy.

Surrogate family love

Finally on the flat after a hard morning's climb

A view back on most of the route

Celebrating with a sprite

Look away if you like cute animals

We celebrated with a few drinks in the evening before heading to bed. The following day was another amazing day of food gluttony. Brace yourself, because for the first time since I came away I HAD A ROAST DINNER. That's right, I was extremely excited... look how happy I am! We had originally been recommended this place to try cuy (guinea pig) as it is a Peruvian speciality, but on seeing a plate of roast pork belly on the table next to us, my mind was made up. I tried the cuy as well, it tasted quite similar to chicken and was quite a lot of effort for the amount of meat that was on it, but quite a novelty. That evening everyone except Matt, Gemma and I took the bus to Lima. Before they left we indulged in some excellent sportsmanship and played a few games of table football, a pasttime I thoroughly enjoy and I was particularly delighted after a tie-breaker between Matt and I ended with a spectacular own-goal on his part.

When my roast arrived... so happy!

I know it looks like it, but I promise you I didn't lick my plate clean...

In the evening we sat at the bar for a while before I had a brainwave, and less than 15 minutes later the three of us were curled up under my duvet on the sofa in the TV Room of the hostel, watching Snow White and The Huntsman and eating nutella out of the jar with a spoon. It was bliss. The film left much to be desired although apart from Kristen Stewart had an okay cast. (I had been wanting to watch this film for some time as a while back whilst on holiday in the lake district, my mum had stumbled onto the film set by accident, I wanted to see if I recognised any of the scenery from around the holiday home.) After our extremely successful evening we all decided to call it a night.

Ready for some downtime after days of trekking

We had splashed out and paid for "cama" ("bed") seats on the bus. I.e. posh seats, but as our bus wasn't until the evening we chilled out in the day and watched The Conjouring, and even though we watched it during the day I am not ashamed to say Gemma and I kept having to hold each others hands, and I successfully resisted the urge to buy another jar of nutella. We decided not to buy any snacks for the bus as it was only an eight hour journey, however this turned out to be a grave error. Tune in next week to find out why...