Peru

Peru is a lot more desert than I expected. Compared to Ecuador it is HUGE! In Ecuador I could get on a but and be pretty much anywhere in a maximum of 12 hours. Here it is a minimum of 12 on bus to significantly change where you are. They still have jungle and mountains and coast like Ecuador, it just take so much longer to see it all.

I met my friend Ashley last Sunday night in a hostal in Arequipa, a small city in southern Peru. At our hostal we met a cool woman named Barbara from London who joined us on an adventure into the canyons. We opted to go on our own, rather than on a guided tour so we could go at our own pace and do what we wanted. The bus ride was longer than expected. The bus company said 6 hours but the last couple hours a bunch of local people piled on to the bus then we had to stop every 10 minutes for people to get off in little villages along the rim. So 6 hours became about 7.5 hours. The next morning we hiked down into Colca Canyon, which is the 2nd deepest canyon in the world. It is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. There is an oasis at the bottom of the canyon where we spent two nights in cabins with natural pools just chilling and exploring the river and surrounding area. There is no electricity down there so after dark everyone just went to bed. It was really relaxing to get away from technology and lots of people and rushing for a while.

I got kind of sick with stomach stuff down there so unfortunately had to take a mule out instead of hike. I felt really lame coming up to the top on the mule when all the groups that had left before us that morning had just gotten to the top and were celebrating that they had made it. But I had no energy to climb. I´m starting to feel better and taking a day to relax in the city of Arequipa again. Tomorrow Ash and I will go to Lake Titicaca which is supposed to be beautiful. Unfortunately, its better from the Bolivian side but we can´t go to Bolivia because the US made stupid laws charging Bolivians a lot to enter the US so they did the same and now American citizens need a visa at to pay 130 dollars to enter Bolivia. Not worth it for just a couple days. So we will head out to the islands on the lake and maybe stay there for a couple days? Its awesome not having a fixed schedule!