Welcome to the Hotel Condor

Well, when I wrote "What a day" - the day was not over yet - the best was yet to come. When I got back to my hostel room the air was freezing and damp and the windows didn´t really close. I inspected the blankets and they didn´t look like they would be much of a help. Even worse, when I closed the curtains to block the cold air a bit off a family of flies came rushing out of the crinkles of the curtains. I decided that I would not stay the night in a place like that and risk pneumonia or some kind of pig flue, so I took off to find a better place or take the last bus back to Arequipa. I remembered that Rossio from the travel agency in Arequipa had given me a brochure of a nice looking 3 star hotel, the Kuntur Wassi and I went off to try my luck. The hotel happened to be right around the corner but looked very dark and out of order. When I was about to leave and go back to the bus station someone came out and asked me if I needed help. It turned out that he was the manager of the hotel and sure, they had free rooms. I told him that I had a big problem with the cold and he promised me a little electrical heater and additional blankets. As the rooms are very big and nice I decided to stay the night, even though the price of 35 USD was way over my budget. But the Kuntur Wassi is a very nice place, rustic and homely, I decided that it was a better option than taking the 9pm bus back to Arequipa - another 6 hours on bumpy roads and arriving in the middle of the night.Especially after Yamil had showed me an article in the local newspaper saying that there have been 3 muggins of foreigners in pirate taxis in Arequipa!

The hotel manager, Elisban, invited me to join him for a drink and I accepted. The hotel also has a kitchen and I ordered some soup to warm me up. I was joined by Marco, the former cook of the Kuntur Wassi and business man, who has various restaurants in the valley and Elisban. They told me a lot about the Colca valley, its traditions and history, the local fiestas, dances, drinks and food... I especially liked the story of a dance called Wititi where the men dress up as women. The dance goes back to a legend of a poor peasant who fell in love with a rich man´s daughter. Of course the father of the girl was against the union and so the guy dressed up as awomen to dance with the girl in the local fiesta. (I found the dance on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytFuMkQW1i8&feature=related )
Elisban also gave me a lot of information on Cusco and the Titikaka region - on roads less travelled and community tourism. I will definately make use of these recommendations!

When I told them that I would leave the next day, Elisban invited me to stay some longer - offering me a 50% discount of the room price, because I, as he put it, "adorned the hotel". It seemed that there where not many guests right now and I was the only girl - apart from the staff, of course.

We talked and talked... about cultural differences, genetically modified food, respect for nature, pachamama and spiritual places in Peru... I absolutely enjoyed the conversation and congratulated myself of my decision to change hotels.

Elisban then invited us to a drink from the jungle region of Peru, made of a tree bark and supposedly having medical powers. It tastes like tree but quite nice actually. I think its called something like Chuchuhuasi. I wrote it down but lost the paper ;-) The funniest bit was, that the drink who was homemade by Elisbans aunt came in a huge bottle of about 5 liters - the biggest bottle I have ever seen. We joked about waking up the next morning with a huge headache and saying "my, it was just one bottle" ;-).

Around midnight I finally went back to my room, put the heater next to the bed, put on my hooded sweater and went to sleep.

The Kuntur Wassi Hotel from the "mirador" tower of the second building: