Altitude, Volcanoes and Condors!

Sunday morning at breakfast we heard music blaring outside the hotel so being curious had to find out what was going on. The main square where our hotel is was filling up with people and some small groups of military people and a band. This happens every Sunday when the Peruvian flag is raised in the square. Fun to watch for a few minutes but we were becoming a bit concerned as our guide for the next two days was collecting us at 8:30 and there was no way a vehicle was going to get close to the hotel. Anyhow Laura, our guide arrived on time and we had to walk a few blocks to meet our driver, Alfonso, who was going to take us high into the Andes.
Driving through the suburbs of Arequipa was an eye opener to see the conditions that so many people have to live in. Very difficult to describe but buildings are falling apart the roads are bad but the people generally appear happy.
We could tell early on that we were going to get on well with Laura and Alfonso though he spoke no English. Laura , until last year, had been mayor of her town on the outskirts of Arequipa for four years and was quite outspoken about the political state of the country. Peru has so much wealth with minerals including copper,, lithium, cobalt, gold and silver and huge fruit and vegetable production yet so many people are poor.
Shortly after leaving Arequipa we started coming across convoys of trucks coming in the opposite direction. They were bringing copper from the mines down to the coast and onward for export principally to China.
Once we had cleared them the landscape started to change . We saw many wild llama, alpaca and vicuña and on the horizon volcanoes, a number of which were smoking. They are not particularly active but a sight to see. We reached 5000 metres high and all around we could see even more volcanoes. The picture below will not do it justice. Another highlight of the journey was seeing some small tornadoes, see photo below.
Tonight and Monday night we are staying at the Colca Lodge hotel in the Colca Valley where we arrived early afternoon. Marvellous hotel in a very remote location with its major attraction being hot pools by the river in front of the hotel. A truly relaxing experience!
Today, Monday, Laura and Alfonso picked us up at 7am for our drive through the Colca Valley to the Colca Canyon to hopefully see condors. The drive was incredible. The weather was great with clear blue skies and the landscape here in the Andes was indescribable. There is so much history with what the Incas did here and the people before them. As you can imagine there are many steep sides to the landscape but this has been terraced over hundreds of years to enable agriculture.
We arrived at the view point to see the condors. This is only possible first thing in the morning when the thermals are suitable to enable them to glide. What a sight it is to see these large birds gliding through the air,
Driving through the valley it is clear to see how hard the local people have to work on the land and understandable why the younger people choose to leave and seek their fortunes in the cities for what they might consider an easier life.
Tomorrow we are off to our next destination Puno which is on the banks of Lake Titicaca. This will be a six hour coach trip.Read more