commenced at 4:30 pm on Saturday, Oct. 3rd
20 hours on a bus is totally worth the destination! Plus this bus had huge squishy and spacious seating where you could plug in your headphones to listen to a movie. Did I mention this was a double decker bus and we all got to sit on the top! They even gave you Cruz del Sur logo marked mini-pillows and fleece blankets (i helped myself to the blanket..)
We pretty much occupied our ample time by talking/singing, taking random photos, or finally chilling back and listening to our iPods and jusst watching the amazing sights of endless sand dunes cross our vision. The further you get away from Lima, we noticed, the more of a blue sky you can see.
On Sunday at around noon in Arequipa where we met the host families we were going to be staying with for the next 4 days of the trip. Mine was fortunate enough to catch me off gaurd with a mouthful of Piqueo Snax in my mouth after a long trip.
(I seriously cannot stop eating those things!)
They were so nice! They´re names were Raul and Cecilia and they ran a colegio there in Arequipa and their daughter, Francesca, who is 17 and I ended up speaking French the times we were together and then Spanish, of course, with everyone else. I stayed in their Granmas apartment. It was a pretty sweet set up for an older woman. Everything was so clean and modern! Big screen TV and my room was like hotel clean and white with a fluffy bed containing like 6 huge pillows and a big window with a great view of the city.
The next day on Monday we were all taking a tour bus up into the mountains of a village called Chivy. However, the altitude of Arequipa is MUCH higher and dryer than Lima so I woke up with a pretty epic nose-bleed that morning. I mean it was like someone attatched a faucet to my face and left it running.
Of course if a faucet actually ran blood like my nose, did people would declare a biblical plague..but it was this imperfect metaphor that quickly crossed my mind as I lunged for the box of tissues next to my bed before I got anymore on the white sheets.
So this tour bus was run by a guy named Wilmer. We understood his Spanish better than his English but he had some pretty interesting things to show us. For example the scenery near Chivy was EXACTLY how I first pictured a stereotypical Peru. It was layed out with huge green canyons and mountains with rustic architecture and people dressed in the traditionaly colorful Sierra (mountain region) garmets; like the skirts and brimmed hats and blouses with a decorated llama, alpaca, or lamb in tow as the sell they´re alpaca made clothings, blankets and other trinkets on the side of the road. Part of this altitude change is you get the chance to purchase the Coca leaf (yes cocaine) it came in a chewable leaf, tea and an assortment of candies. We all went for the candies, chewable and or hard-candy. We stopped at this one site for a nice little hike. Of course this hike included a stone staircase of DEATH up the side of the mountain to visit an old stone tower and a theatrical stadium where animal sacrafices used to take place on a stone table in the center.
Anways with the high altitude and thin air, everyone was having difficulties sometimes breathing but it was all worthi it in the end to a relaxing dip in the local Hot Springs.
Tuesday we all woke up early to leave at 6 am to go up into the mountains to hike up above where the Condors nest in the canyons of Colca which apparently is the world´s deepest canyon!
The condors are pretty amazing. Their wing spans up to about 3 meters (9 ft) The deep green and rocky canyons totally gave me the feeling of being somewhere in a Middle-Earth setting in Lord of the Rings..
By the way..these canyons are part of the ANDES! I hiked in the ANDES! Then we returned in Chivy for lunch. The food spread was incredible. At one point we thought we were eating fried chicken...no it was either guinea pig or..Alpaca! And I ate them! Makes sense though..it was copious Alpaca that lined the roads without a chicken in sight...
Afterwards we made the return trip back to Arequipa where we found ourselves rope into another Rotary meeting. But we all took turns singing or playing guitar for the club there, Yanhuara.
Thursday: Honestly not my best day. In the morning I woke up to non stop vomiting and stomach pains. However I still had to make the bus trip to Tacna with the others. Everyone was so helpful that morning. Francesca packed my suitcase and got everything ready for me as i just flaied uselessly in my bed. The bought me medication for the pain but the bus trip didn´t prove much better. I ended up throwing up all over the seat next to me on the bus too. It was my friend, Elisa´s seat but man not a drop on her. That girl saw the warning signs and moved like lightning out of my line of fire. But everyone was so helpful. Adele, the girl from France and others had me sit in another seat as THEY cleaned up after me. Luckily there was never anything in my stomach this whole day so it was just like pretty much throwing up my stomach.
We arrived in Tacna where I met my host family there. They were waiting for me with a welcome sign and a bouquet of pink lilies. And here I was...pale, nauseous me sloshing out of the terminal. I ended up going to the hospital there that night for a fever and stomach infection. Too many injections for my comfort zone. One took my blood, other was for a 4 hour medication drip into my arm and another in my...hip...for the fever. Luckily so miracle allowed me to understand and converse with the doctors about my condition. I was alone during this by the way. So i stayed during the night and early the next morning my host family took me home to rest up for the trip to Chile.
Friday: Still sick but was NOT going to miss a chance to travel to another country! So That morning we took yet ANOTHER bus and drove down to a city in Chile called Arika. Money there was nuts. They have Pesos there which one peso = 180 soles which is about..547 pesos to $1 US. So Arika was beautiful. Blue sky and the city had a lot of clear views of the ocean, cliffs, and trees in the city. (We´re all used to the grey skies of Lima) we visited a market where I got to buy Ice cream for $1,980 pesos and keychains for $300pesos and a nose stud for $1000pesos...I´ve never seen numbers that high for prices before..I kept a $2000 peso note (about $4). It was beautiful. We also visited this museum...28 exhibits...with a tour guide named Maria..who explained EVRYTHING! My goodness that woman could talk. I haveve never heard so much about the origin of a stone before...lots of information but she just kept goin!
Saturday: Our last day of the trip. Our day began taking a tour with Maria again out in the desert for a nice long walk...a FOUR hour tour. Wouldn´t have been so bad if she hadn´t kept toting us around overenthusiastically. A good handful of us were still sick, including me. Kristen, Lizzie, and I ended up having more sicknesses. But I got to know Lizzie a lot more as we sat in one of the host families living (making sure a bathroom was really close) with multiple bottles of gatorade within reach. So we were sick here and there; still quite an amazing trip! So at around 5pm we all boarded ANOTHER bus in preparation for our 23 hour trip. Not so bad. We all slept most of the way and watched movies and talked together. That´s always the best part.
Muchas gracias, Chicos por uno viaje increible! Los quiero!
