Lima, Arequipa, Colca Canyon, Peru

How nice, we got to sleep in this morning, we returned last night from Arequipa, Southern Peru. We've been on the go, early each day since we've hit Peru. We've had practically no internet. We arrived in Lima and met up with Adrienne. Our base in Lima is in Miraflores, a very clean, posh area. BTW, Lima's population is almost 9 million, so traffic is like LA. The guide say about driving, if you follow the rules, you won't get anywhere. The driving is crazy. Peru is rich in natural resources: natural gas, silver, cooper and 5th in the world for Gold production. Lima is spending money on improvements. We've eaten in some lovely, foody style restaurants. On our 2nd day in Peru, we flew to Arequipa and took a 4 hour car ride to the Colca Valley (deepest canyon in the world) which is surrounded by at least 6 volcanos. We hit our highest elavation of 16,000 on the drive. We have all been doing fine with the altitude sickness, drinking coca leaf tea to prevent it. Can't bring the leaves back though because it's the base for cocaine. Definitely feel the heart racing at times from the altitude. We stayed at the Colca Valley Lodge, an amazingly beautiful place with natural hot springs. This place was heaven on earth, set by a river and fantastic views. It's hard to imagine that this beautiful place was so difficult to get to. Most of the roads were not paved, gravel, potholes, and fallen boulder obstacles. As much as we enjoyed the place, after 3 days of bouncing our kishkas driving around, it was enough. We did do an early visit to see the Condors take flight in the morning. The Condors live in caves within the Colca canyon. As the morning starts to heat up, this largest flying bird starts to take off. They glide in circles within the warming air thermals. They rise as the warm air rises. We saw 6 of them just gliding by in circles before they leave the area in search of food. Majestic!!! Just as progressive as Lima is, this area in Colca is a step back in time. Village after village of no electricity, some places without running water, shanty towns. However, there are many people with cell phones, go figure. This area is supported by agriculture and animal byproduct: milk, meat and wool (cow, llama, alpaca). On our next day, we took an unexpected 6,000 foot elavation gain in 1.5 miles hike to 13,000 feet high. Our goal was a fortress. Adrienne and Glenn were much stronger than Roz who huffed and puffed all the way up. We never thought we would have done this, especially in 2 hours going up, but all felt well accomplished. Returning to lovely Arequipa, we toured around to a monastery, a museum exhibiting "Juanita" and a stop at Starbucks. "Juanita" was a young girl who was sacrificed to the volcano some 600 years ago. She was frozen on the glacier and after a nearby eruption in 1994, the ice melted and uncovered the frozen body, almost perfectly preserved. Other bodies were uncovered, with the scientists believing that there are a couple hunderd more buried in the volcanic mountains. Pictures to follow of this adventure shortly. Have a flight to the Amazon to catch in a bit.