Monday, August 19, 2013

Condors, colca, and canyons galore!

This past weekend we went on a fun-filled bus tour adventure to the colca canyon. We left early Saturday morning to make our journey to another beautiful place in Peru. Our tour guide (Pepe Pedro) was full of fun facts about every historic mark we passed on our way. We learned about the difference between llamas and alpacas (fyi, llamas tails are always up and alpacas tails are always down) :-). We took tons of pictures of the beautiful scenery! When we are able to post pictures (hopefully in the very near future!), you will get to see tons of pictures of the mountains, volcanoes, and wildlife. Everywhere we turn there are fantastic pictures waiting to be snapped!

Our bus driver and tour guide were nice enough to stop frequently for bathroom breaks (for those of us with weak bladders!) and for shopping :-) its so interesting because most of the ladies on the side of the road are selling the same things, but as soon as you walk towards them they will try to engage you and tell you why their product is the best... unfortunately none of us speak Spanish very well,and we don't understand their enthusiastic explanations! We were convinced to take a picture with a 3 day old baby lamb (for one sole!), but Mandy was more excited about petting a stray dog instead of holding the lamb... she loves her stray dogs :-)

After traveling a little further on verrryyyyy bumpy roads, we made it to Chivay to eat our tasty buffet lunch (including alpaca meat, quinoa soup, and other local favorites!). We filled up and then headed out to explore the market for an hour or so before heading to la calera hot springs. As you can probably guess from the name,they were EXTREMELY hot; its heated from the volcanoes! The pool was also around 5 feet deep or a bit more (many of us had to stand on our toes!), so we sure heated up fast! It was a nice time to just relax and hang out before heading back to the hotel to change for dinner.

Our dinner included a band serenading us as well as dancers performing traditional dances. It was all well and good until they asked some of our group members to join in...let's just say one of the dance's included Brittany and our friend Hans laying on the floor with an orange in their hands getting "whipped" by the locals... we had never seen or experienced anything like it (some may never want to experience it again! Haha). It was a very entertaining and interesting evening at say the least!

We then headed to the hotel (which had no heat!) to get some shut eye before getting up again at530 am to begin our Sunday. Today was spent traveling to the cola canyon to see the condors, eating some local cuisine, taking jumping pictures,and heading back to our hotel in Arequipa :-) we ate some dinner and played a few games, and now we're going to head to bed to get ready for another fun filled day in the clinic tomorrow :-)

Thanks for keeping up with our blog! Keep checking in to see whats going on and how God is working while we're herein Peru!!

Blog again with you soon!
Allie, Sara, Angela, Heidi, Mandy and Brittany

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