Arequipa and Colca Canyons Rally: Dia dos – Day 2.

Arequipa and Colca Canyons Rally: Dia dos – Day 2.

This is Kater Jonathan writing. Miez asked me to take over for this post. I think this is something she will regret afterwards. The upside hereby is that she will never again ask me to write a post here.

At the beautiful hotel Belmond las Casitas in Yanque we started very early in order to catch an eye on the famous and mythical condor at the Cruz del Condor. We had an early breakfast served by our personal Jesus. It was very delicious but unfortunately Jesus decided this day not to serve it coming over the water. Nevertheless, he gave us very cute charms to bring luck. We would need them but I’ll be coming to this later. After saying goodbye to lovely Evelynck at the reception, Jesus in the service and Goldie, the manager’s dog – soaken wet saying a doggish goodbye, we started on the 1h ride to the Condor’s Cross.

On the way there we were surpassed by crazy tourist busses being on the challenge to arrive first at the Condor’s Cross in order to provide the best sight on these birds. I tried my best to keep contact to the busses but Miez complained about my driving. Best part on the route were the spots where you have to drive through some rivers – well creeks. I had a lot of fun to pass through, being an old rally / challenge driver. What I did not knew at this point of time was, that we will face some more driving challenges later.

At the Condor’s Cross some tourists already sat on the best spots to view the famous condor family. You have to be early because the condors only turn up between 8 and 10am – if they even do. Probably after 10am, the condor kids need to go to school. The Condor Cross is famous under the condor community – here with approximately 50 members – because at this spot, there are upwinds from the approximately 1’200m deep canyon and they easily can surf and sail using these upwinds. You now need to know that condor are scavengers – meaning they mainly eat dead animals. Probably, they also like this spot because they will get a fine dining meal if a tourist falls into the canyon.

So, Miez turned up at the Condor’s Cross with her very lovely poncho, a stylisch peruvian hat and popstar-like sunglasses (see pics). This immediately was a flash for the people there already waiting for the condor and the indios selling souvenirs. The condors had not turned up yet and so, all the folks looked at Miez – really. When the hype settled a little bit, we tried to sneak in a good position to view the condis. While waiting we watched other tourists as they did with us respectively in particular with Miez. There were cool boys from probably the US doing Video Blogs. That was funny to observe. They were very traveler-style dressed up and had great wisdom to share via their vlogs. An impressive oxygene bottle belonged to their style to point out to the public that they are on 3’400m above sea level. The best wisdom was that one should avoid drinking Mate de coca tea due to the water the native indios use to cook it. Well, obviously these boys have not learned on their travels that this is not an issue as long as you cook the water – what essentially is the point with tea.

Well, what can we say about the condors? They never turned up this day. They are divas. I suddenly thought I’ve seen one and already freaked out but it turned out to be just a little falcon. Needless to say that condors have a size of nearly 3.3m of wingspan while young falcons have approximately 1m. Or in other words, I made myself to a clown. Miez even tried to attract the condors by nearly falling into the canyon – fortunately, on the other side of the wall back to the path and fortunately, just hitting a knee. She elegantly and immediately stood up again and claimed this to her too dark sunglasses / the altitude / the medicine she is taking against the altitude. However, this left the condor family unimpressed. I have three theories why they did not show up: (1) Because it was to cold to get out and the condor mama said to the baby birds: „No, you need to stay in the nest and play with your iPads while I do my nails“. (2) They simply where stressed by Miezli’s outfit: „Kids you stay here, something weird is out there“. (3) The condors are a made up by the natives to bring tourists to the spot to sell souvenirs to them. And dangerous Mate de coca tea only ‚cooked‘ with cold water …

After approximately 2h waiting for these condor divas, we gave up and drove down to Cabanaconde. From there one could do a hike down to the bottom of the canyon. The nature is told to be marvellous but chances to meet the condor family there are minimal. Hence, we just took some pics of a cute donkey and started-off to the other long way round to Arequipa via Huambo. After some kilometers on the road we found out that if ‚Carretara Afirmada‘ is written on Peru’s roadmaps, it is not meant to be affirmative (in Deutsch: bejahend) like saying ‚Yes‘ but simply lacking tarmac. It was just 10am and we felt like having a lot of time. So, we did a U-turn and headed back to Chivay – passing again the Cruz del Condor, some creeks and some booths with souvenirs and Mate de coca boiled with cold water. In Pinchollo, the whole Plaza des Armes – the market place in the middle of most villages – was covered with booths to nap the tourists going to and coming from Cruz del Condor. Miez saw some baby alpacas and I saw no other way than to stop for her to cuddle one. The one she found was named Esmeralda. In fact, we found out later all baby alpacas here were named Esmeralda. Same with the pullovers and blankets and belts and so on: They all are made of baby alpaca. Hence, Esmeraldas. From China. I’m sure for tourists in Peru even cars, chairs, water taps etc. are made of baby alpaca. But honestly, that doesn’t matter. It makes us feel better and brings some dollars to the natives and the rural people. And even helps some Chinese.

After Esmeralda Village Pinchollo we continued to Chivay with the plan to take another ‚long way round‘-route via Cruce a Chalhaunca. Turned out that in the middle of Chivay village the entrance to this route was not easy to find. So, we took a Mate de coca – guess what: boiled with cold water – at the Plaza des Armes. On the next attempt, we were successful to find the access to the route via Chalhuanca. This route really was very beautiful with the colca river on the right and not so perfect but still tarmac. Coming to Sibayo we crossed an interesting looking bridge over the river and then the tarmac was gone. I thought, well, perfect for half an hour or so. But I was wrong: This was one of the Yes-saying ‚Carretara Afirmada‘ again for the next 4.5 hours. I’ve told that I do rallies, one that I once did went to and through Mongolia with a car with an engine not bigger than 1’000 ccm – the so called Mongol Rally. It strongly reminded me on this. And the noises the car made were quite similar – cars start doing noises if you drive them properly offroad. To be honest, I suggested to Miez to turn around before reaching the PNR (Point of no return) facing the situation not having an accurate map, almost no traffic and neither data nor phone connection. Miez said, bah, you did the Mongol Rally and now you’re whining here. Well, that’s how it came we proceeded.

Here some maths: If you make an average of 20kmh you are 20km down the road or whatever to call this after one hour. And 40km after two. And so on. Not that far. The non-tarmac route is 90km. Piece of cake, you say. 4.5h, I say. And we once thought we were early on schedule. Lacking any radio station in reach, we after 2h started to sing ‚Despacito‘ to the beat of the bumps on the road. This is what a beginning altitude sickness does to people.

Driving in the middle through the Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca on an altitude of 4’300m however was an impressive experience: The incredible wideness of the flats surrounded by 6’000ish mountains, the at least 10 huge wild alpaca herds under control of mostly female shepards in colored clothes accompanied by dogs barking at you if you stop. Smaller Vikunha herds – remember the wild bambi-version of alpacas …. Nevertheless, we felt lucky having tarmac under our car’s wheels again but at the same time graceful for having had this once in a lifetime experience you can’t buy for any money in the world.

The rest of the road back to Arequipa was packed again with busses and trucks. Strange enough, Miez was afraid of these trucks again but not of the offroad experience we just had. A man should understand women …..

The due time to bring back our rental car was 6pm and we made it Swiss-like at 5.57pm. In addition to that, we made 500km on these two days. This corresponded exactly to the clearance we had for the rental car (250km per day) which brought the clerk at the Hertz desk in Arequipa to freak out and to call together all staff to tell them. Indeed, that wasn’t one zic-zac too much …

Speaking of Zic Zac: That was the name of the restaurant we went in Arequipa to end this dramatic day packed with unbelievable happenings and experiences. Miez took some vegetarian menu – the food my food eats. I took an alpaca steak – I hope it wasn’t Esmeralda.