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:

Colca - Condors and Coca

What a day! I just got back to my hostel in Cabanaconde after approxmately 8 cups of coca tea, two bowls of hot soup and a short walk through the thickest fog I have ever seen! Its pretty cold in the internet cafe but there is this cute little boy with a woolen hat and dirty face that helps me press "enter" and warms my heart :-)

This morning I left Arequipa by bus at 6:00. The first hour on the bus was pretty depressing - a lot of rubbish on the side of the road, no green, houses that seemed to going to break down any minute... but after leaving the greater Arequipa area and entering the mountains everything changed! On the right you could see the snowtopped El Misti vulcano and on the left side I spottet the first vicuñas - the wild cousin of the llama! The mountains got higher, the villages smaller and less frequent... the view from the bus alone was worth the trip! Unfortunately I really had to go to the toilet but there was none on the bus, neither did it stop for a bathroom break. I was already contemplating all possible solutions - from getting of the bus and waiting for the next one to just letting my bladder explode. Thank God the beautiful landscape destracted me a bit and I made it to the town of Chivay without accident! The second the bus door opened I raced to the "servicios higienicos" of the bus terminal - and still made it back to the bus before departure. From Chivay on I enjoyed the landscape much more ;-). And not just the landscape seemed to be out of a Peru tourism brochure - also the people seemed to be paid by the local tourism industry: women in colourfull embroidered hats, velvet vests and big skirts boarded the bus - some of them with a pretty baby in a scarf on their back. Others were working in the fields or riding donkeys, nearly all in traditional clothes! The trip to Cabanaconde is quite exhausting - 6 hours on pretty bumpy roads (which seem even bumpier if you suffer from a full bladder ;-)) - but definately worth it!

Stil, when I arrived in Cabanaconde I was pretty tired and too lazy to look around long for a hostel, I picked the first one I found on plaza de armas. Its not the Ritz - but at 10 Soles (not even 2,50 Euro) there is nothing to complain about. And it has a great view on the pig stall and its inhabitants - "vista del chancho",in Spanish.

After refreshing a bit I took off to explore Cabanaconde. Its a tiny village - its only difference to other villages on the way is its proximity to the Canyon and to the Cruz del Condor, the famous view point from where you can see the condors fly over the Canyon. There are no restaurants or cafes so I was happy to see that one of the hostels, Hostel del Valle de Fuego, offers food and drink as well. I went in - its quite rustic with an open fire and a stone bar - and decided to have a mate de coca and read a bit in my new book about Macchu Picchu. There was one more guest - a Swiss guy who spoke German and told me about their disastrous attempt to climb the Ampato - a 6000m peak near Cabanaconde. They left yesterday but decided to give up the ascent as the material supplied by the tour agency was desastrous - both tents collapsed and flooded and the food they had taken tasted of cat food or worse. He told me about some other tours they had done in Ecuador and in Peru - and he explained in detail how the wife of on e of their guides had prepared cuy for them. He was also able to anwer my question of how they get the hair of the furry cuys - just soak them in hot water and the hair will fall out. Not very appetizing but it stilled my curiosity - I had always imagined the indigenas shaving the cuy!

After the cuy story I felt that I needed some more coca tea and also asked the guy at the bar about what the time would be best to see the condors and avoid the crowds. From the subject of condors we got to the canyon, to Cusco, to stupid guides, to gringas falling for the wrong peruanos... Yamil is about 35 years old, has shaggy dark hair and a beard and is pretty funny! He told me how the Cusqueño guides all invent cooler Inca sounding names, usually Quechua words for Sun, Moon Wind and how this impresses some of the "gringas". It started raining and I spent the whole afternon chatting to Yamil, helping him lite the open fire and drinking heaps of coca tea. Yamil has this really quirky senseof humour: when thefoggot thicker and the open fire started smoking he commented "Looks like London,right", adding some seconds later "...after the Germans bombed it, ofcourse". Later on some Spanish and Czech tourists joined us and decidedto have a litteparty later on. The place is pretty nice and I think I will move there tomorrow for my second night in the Colca Valley.

Oups, my dirty little friend is not happy any morw with pressing the enter button and started deleting what I just wrote. I'll get some rest now and then get back to the other hostel - Yamil promised me fried bananas and some stories of his life. Both sound promising!

Encounters

Yesterday when we were looking for a simple and cheap place to eat we stumpled over a chinese restaurant offering all kinds of soups, rice dishes and "aeropuerto". According to the Spanish-English dictionary an "aeropuerto" of course is an airport. But how does it end up on a menu? We suspected it to be a roasted flight attendents butt in a cerosene sauce or something the like - not very yummy, by all means! If somebody knows what it is - please enlight us!

Apart from the aeropuerto there have been so many funny and strange encounters during the last two weeks - Alberto is writing hours and hours everyday in his notebook not to forget any of these. But it seems that he can´t keep up his writing - every night he stays up later to fill page upon page of his (3rd!) notebook. It´s a pity he writes in Italian - I would love to copy some of his accounts - I guess they must be hilarious!

One of the cutest encounters was definately meeting Pablo and his Mum in Lima. On our last night in Lima we were looking for a bus going to Miraflores and asked a young Mum for help. She happened to go to the same direction and as we had to wait quite some time for the next bus she asked us about our experience in Lima and recommended us many museums and places to visit. Her little son Pablo, 4 years old, a bit chubby but very cute, wearing a jeans overall and a red cap just looked us with big brown eyes. When his Mum told us about a theater in downtown Lima he said "I like theaters". That was the only sentence he said - so it must have been very important to him! Alberto gave him a red clown´s nose and Pablo kept it on all the way. A very serious little guy - but very cute!

An encounter of a very different kind was meeting Paul, an 40-50is tall and blond American living in Medellin. Alberto had met him in one of the - or I guess it was in THE bar in Pisco, as there is just one, after our tour to the Ballestas and Paracas. He must already have had a couple of piscos and cervezas and by the time he got to our hotel to pick us up to go out at night he was "bien mareado", as the lovely gentleman who runs the hostel put it. Unfortunately he immediately took a liking to me and told everybody about a hundred times that he thought "the German girl" was the best, the hottest and whatever. Our host got really worried about Paul and suggested us to call one of his friends who has a taxi and send him back to his hostel which happened to be in another village, 10km from Pisco. Thank God Paul had his key with him - he himself had no idea where he was staying! And Pisco being infamous for its crime rate we didn´t think it to be a good idea to leave him to himself. When we walked to the city center together the fresh air and exercise sobered him up a bit and he told us of his Colombian wife who was in his words a "f... nut" due to hormonal imbalance and refusing to take any medication. He also told us about his work and guess what - he had been a controller and auditor before moving to Colombia 4 years ago. Thank God I gave up being a controller - who knows, I might have ended up like Paul, drinking my way through South America and telling everybody about the greatness of "that German girl" and the nutritional value of German beer! Anyhow, after telling us some funny stories about living in Colombia and some more beer he fell asleep on the table, snoring, and we decided to call the taxista our host had recommended to ship him home. The next day everybody at the hostel told us that this was the right thing to do as any other taxista for sure would have dumped him somewhere and left with his camera and money. So meeting Paul was definately one of the "encounters" Alberto spend sleepless nights over writing it down!

And then there was Pepe. Pepe and his Heart. But thats a story for tomorrow, otherwise I´ll end up like Alberto, spending sleepless nights writing down "encounters" ;-)

The Art of Traveling

After visiting the amazing Santa Catalina Monastery this morning I was so full of impressions that I decided to spend the afternoon as "tranquilo" as possible and prepare for my next destinations. I bought a small backpack for 1-day hikes and a jacket against the cold and rain I fear I have to face in order to see the marvels of Macchu Picchu and Lake Titikaka. Later in the afternoon I went in search of the local post office to ship home some souvenirs I bought during the last days and which I didn´t want to carry all over South America. The lady at the post office was a model of inefficiency but after a lot of back and forth my hand woven wool blanket and knitted little llama are now on their way to France :-) Not to forget 10 GB of pictures ;-)

Next I wanted to get my bus ticket to Cusco which I had decided to change form the 15th to the 16th to spend two more nights in the Colca Canyon. On the way to the travel agency a very well assorted little book store caught my eye... and 10 minutes later I left with 100 soles less - and very happy, looking forward to hours and hours of happy reading!

The first book that caught my eye and immediately convinced me was "The art of traveling" (but in Spanish, mind you ;-)) on how to be happy while traveling. Even though I think I pretty much master the art of traveling this book still comes in handy ;-)

The second book I bought is "The pilgrim" by Paulo Coelho - a book I have wanted to read for a long time. Every journey is a pilgrimage - or can be one if you open your eyes and heart. So I guess this book is good travel literature, too.

The third book somehow jumped on me while I was already paying for the other two ones - Hiram Binghams account of the discovery of Macchu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. I guess reading this classic will make a big difference to my upcoming visit and will prove more valuable than going on one of the usual "mass rapid tours".

I spend a good part of the afternoon in the "Casa Verde Cafe" we discovered on our first day in Arequipa and then went in search of bus tickets to the Colca canyon. There a re a million of tour agencies in the historic center of Arequipa and I was a bit reluctant to enter one being afraid that they would want to sell me a all inclusive tour instead of just a bus ticket. I have heard so many accounts of aggressive guides and tourist traps in Peru that I was kind of expecting the worst - but should learn just another lesson of "The Art of Traveling".

A little travel agency called "Alpacactus" in calle Jerusalem had a sign outside saying that they sell bus tickets to Chivay and Cabanaconde in the Colca valley and I decided to try my luck. The girl at the counter, Rossio, about my age, was all smiles and very chatty so I was expecting to be confronted with some glossy leaflets on tours and hotels soon. But I was so wrong - she advised me to just book a bus ticket and then ask around in Cabanaconde for a local guide or someone who might like to show me around for a tip. She gave me heaps of information on the Colca canyon, on how to get there, what to bring, how to save money... She collected all the maps and brochures she could find in the office and recommend me a lot of lovely things you can do and see for free. She was so helpfull and nice I would have loved to book anything with her but she told me, it would be much cheaper to go to Cabanaconde and book it there with a local. She gave me one of her winning smiles and told me that I should not worry about spending much and that "it is all about conversation and interacting" - so true! I guess with all her good advise in mind I will have a great time in the Canyon.

I will leave tomorrow morning at 6am to arrive around noon and then spend the afternoon hiking or relaxing in the hot springs. On Friday I would love to see the condors and maybe spend another day in Chivay, capital of the Colca region. On Saturday I have to get back to Arequipa to take the night bus to Cusco.

Today definately was a day full of lessons on the "Art of Traveling" - and another step on my pilgrimige - to Macchu Picchu and to being happy :-) Can´t wait to get back to the hostel to enjoy my books - just have to decide where to begin! :-)

Monasterio Santa Catalina

Today we visited the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a cloistered convent which is like a city inside the city. It consists of various buildings, courtyards and alleys and you can spend hours and hours walking around, contemplating the various murals and paintings or just sitting down and enjoying the silence in one of the renovated cells or little backyards. It was build only 40 years after the Spaniards arrived, in 1580 and was enlarged in the 17th century - now measuring over 20,000 square meters.

The founder of the monastery was a rich widow, Maria de Guzman. The tradition of the time indicated that the second son or daughter of a family would enter religious service, and the convent accepted only women from high-class Spanish families. Each nun at Santa Catalina had between one and four servants or slaves, and the nuns invited musicians to perform in the convent, gave parties and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. Each family paid a dowry at their daughter's entrance to the convent, and the dowry owed to gain the highest status, indicated by wearing a black veil, was 2,400 silver coins, equivalent to US$50,000 today. The nuns were also required to bring 25 listed items, including a statue, a painting, a lamp and clothes. The wealthiest nuns may have brought fine English china and silk curtains and rugs. Although it was possible for poorer nuns to enter the convent without paying a dowry, it can be seen from the cells that most of the nuns were very wealthy.

In 1871 Sister Josefa Cadena, a strict Dominican nun, was sent by Pope Pius IX to reform the monastery. She sent the rich dowries back to Europe, and freed all the servants and slaves, giving them the choice of remaining as nuns or leaving. In addition to the stories of outrageous wealth, there are tales of nuns becoming pregnant, and amazingly of the skeleton of a baby being discovered encased in a wall. This, in fact, did not happen in Santa Catalina, and there are rumours of the same story in the nearby Santa Rosa convent, as well.

The convent once housed approximately 450 people (about a third of them nuns and the rest servants) in a cloistered community. It was opened to the public in 1970, when the nuns opened their doors to tourism to pay for the installation of electricity and running water, as required by law. The restoration has been done very well - just enought to preserve the beauty of the place without being too touristy or "Disneylandish".

We were lucky as the sun was shining all the time and the convent became a "kingdom of light" as Alberto put it - perfect for taking pictures and enjoying the colours, paintings and shadows of the various alleys and courtyards. We also enjoyed a "real" espresso at the little cafe of the monastery - which has a great menu of cold and hot "sins" and "temptations" ;-)

Charlie and the Mariachis

Since leaving Nazca Alberto´s fame as Charlie Garcia has abruptly stopped. No more stares, no more shouts of "Hey Charlie" on the streets and no more jokes about his ressemblance to the Argentinian rockstar. Even though Alberto had been a bit pissed off about the many admirers at first, I now had the impression that he was missing his fame and the jokes and conversations that accompanied it. We were also wondering if Arequipeños don´t know Charlie Garcia, don´t notice the likeness or just don´t bother enough to voice it...

Yesterday night when walking back to the hostel after a yummy late night dinner I decided to check if our usual internet cafe was still open and if so look up some information about the Colca Canyon, tours to the Manu reserve and maybe write a couple of emails. Alberto offered to accompany me. When we reached the internet cafe we saw that it was still open but that the staff was having a party, music drinks and a band of Mariachi included. The girl who usually works there waved us in and when we stepped in to see if the intrenet was still working one of the Mariachis shouted "Hey, Charlie Garcia" and everybody started laughing and asking for a song! But I guess the ones who laughed most where Charlie, oups, Alberto and me! Just when we had given up on Charlie he had been saved by a Mariachi ;-)

Running to Rio

Well, since yesterday there is another reason for me to run to Rio as fast as possible ;-) Bill bought a longboard for me and finally, finally, finally one of my longtime dreams and items on my "things to do before I get fat and old" (even fatter, I mean ;-)) will come true: learning to surf!

I have the teacher, the longboard and the waves all waiting for me in Rio- so I guess its just me, who is missing ;-)