I’m writing this from Cusco. I made
it back to the Point for Christmas and New Years! I just got off a terrible
night bus from Arequipa this morning at around 6:30am but it’s great to be back
in this city that feels somewhat like a home. When I was here in
October/November you can notice from pictures that the surrounding mountains
were all dry and brown, but now just over a month later they’ve transformed due
to the rain to a healthy green. It makes the already very cool looking city
quite a bit cooler.
I realize that other then the last
two posts about Joe leaving and me staying, the last thing we talked about was
the Choro trek we did out of La Paz. Although that was probably about three
weeks ago now, we haven’t done all that much since then. Aside from Copacabana,
Isle del Sol, the Choro trail, and La Paz, our experience trying to travel in Bolivia
was a bit of a fail. We had done much less research on Bolivia then on Peru and
only had basic ideas of what was available. After the Choro trek we retreated
back to La Paz to form a game plan for roughly the next 20 days. We came up
with a plan that we were fairly happy with, but weren’t dying to do as much as certain
other things we had yet to do in Peru.
I won’t go too far into detail on
the whole experience but basically, about a week after setting off for a 20 day
cruise through Bolivia, after having already been there for a couple of weeks,
we turned around and headed back to Peru. Although we met a few friendly
locals, they’re bound to be out there, a majority of our experiences were with
unwelcoming people that wanted nothing to do with us. When it got to the point
where we couldn’t get any information out of anyone in three different cities,
and couldn’t get onto cheap buses going to where we wanted to go, we turned
around and retreated to Peru after a week of trying. The experience we had in
Bolivia was one we had been warned by a few other people might happen, but I
wanted to see for myself. Oh well.
We headed to Arequipa, Peru for two
reasons. One was because of our experience in Bolivia, and the second was
because it was in the direction of Lima, which is where Joe’s plane would take
off. Arequipa is in the southwest portion of the country and most people go
there in order to visit the Colca Canyon, which is deeper then the Grand Canyon
in the States. “El Miste” is a huge, perfectly cone shaped active volcano that
looks over the city. It also draws a lot of people to the city due to the fact
that its 5,822meter high summit is known as the easiest climb in the world at
that height. It blows its cap pretty regularly and last did so in 1985.
Arequipa was a nice city to hang
out in. It seemed to have more money than any other places we had been. Granted
we didn’t explore everywhere, but where we did had nice streets, impressive
buildings, and well kept parks. We stayed at a party hostel, which I know we
bashed a little bit in a previous post but if they’re used properly, they can
be a good thing. Our main problem with the idea of them is how easy it is to forget
where you are and just party with people who speak perfect English. This is
something that is up to the individual to manage. No one was holding us down
there and no one was saying we weren’t allowed to leave and explore things on
our on. They can be a good place to meet people, live cheaply, and have a
really good time. I think we were just getting a little bitter about the
concept because we were allowing ourselves to be sucked in by the lifestyle and
we were spending our money on booze instead of adventures. It’s just one of
those many things in this world that should be used in moderation, at least for
me, with my circumstances, and goals.
Anyway, for the last three days or
so of Joe’s trip we hung out there, exploring the city for architecture and
food by day and having some crazy times at night. We would have gone to the
Colca Canyon together but decided it would be too rushed to try to fit a trek
in before Joe had to head to Lima. So we had a few good days of fun and then
Joe got in a cab and left, which was weird. It was officially just me, and the
world. My first adventure was a three day walk through the beautiful Colca
Canyon...
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