I left off at the Chivay bus station...
So we run in guns blazin´and there was not 6 oclock am bus! The guys who collects 10 cents to use the restroom was there already! There was one guy there serving coffee so we played cards and drank cafe y mate de coca. Prati tried his first coca leaf tea. He said it wasn´t too exciting but it was the Peruvian thing to do. The bus finally left at 730 and three hours later we arrived in Cabanconde. Not without a hassle though. Two guys at two different points on the trip boarded the bus for 20 minutes and tried to sell these ¨tourism tickets.¨ I had read about this in my travel book that you DONT have to buy these even though they tell you that you do. I think they were $15 each and they get you into 8 various travel hot spots along the canyon. We didn´t want to go to any of those spot so we didn´t want to purchase the tickets. The first guy took ¨no¨ for an answer but the second guy... wooo wee he was a tough one. He was soooo mad when we said no that he threatened to call the police and said I HAD to buy the ticket. I kept persistantly saying ¨no gracias¨and he TOOK MY PICTURE on his phone and said he was going to report me and that I couldn´t stay in Cabanaconde! That I wasn´t welcome there! I said ¨ok¨and when we got off the bus we walked away into a store to buy some water and he gave us one more plea. ¨Señora por favor.¨ After thrity minutes or so I think he realized we weren´t the dummies that he thought we were. All we knew about Cabanaconde was that there was a ¨short hike¨down to the bottom of the canyon that takes you to a Sangalle (oasis). Since we didn´t have jackets or sleeping bags we thought we would hike down two hours and back up four hours and then get a hotel in Cabanaconde. The hike down was slippery (Prati fell four times:), toe nail jamming, and knee crunching, BUT sooo worth the knee pain! We passed three crosses and couldn´t help but think if it was possible that people died hiking out of this canyon. Maybe lack of water? Slip and fall? Did we have enough water? Was there food at the oasis? We had only had a banana and some crackers before the hike. At the bottom of the canyon we finally came to the Oasis! There were four pools, a restaurant, waterfalls, fruit trees, flowers, and huts made of bamboo to sleep in with lots of blankets. Paradise! We quickly decided to spend the night! I felt a little bit like the tourists on the movie ¨The Beach¨who find a map and try to go to paradise. These guys created this mini paradise and I couldn´t help but feel like I was intruding. It only cost $3 per person to sleep there, but I highly doubt the sheets had ever been washed and I had to brush the fleas off the bed before falling asleep.
We woke up at 530am and were on the trail by 6. Multiple people told us that it would take four hours to hike up and MAYBE three if you were super fast. I´m not gonna lie I just wanted to get it over with. We decided if we limited our water/rest breaks that we could knock it out in three hours. The altitude and my backpack were working together like partners in crime trying desperately to suck my breath from my lungs and the cold air snuck in and helped out as an accomplice. I was having a difficult time breathing for sure. Not to mention my calves felt detatched from the bone from the previous days hike. We stopped for a quick break after 45 mins, then again after 40 mins, and once again after 35mins. Then ba BAM we were there in TWO hours!!! I felt like I could have done it again! I couldn´t believe my eyes when we saw the town at 8am. YESSS!
45 minutes later were were back on the bus passed out headed to Arequipa for one more night in the White City.
So we run in guns blazin´and there was not 6 oclock am bus! The guys who collects 10 cents to use the restroom was there already! There was one guy there serving coffee so we played cards and drank cafe y mate de coca. Prati tried his first coca leaf tea. He said it wasn´t too exciting but it was the Peruvian thing to do. The bus finally left at 730 and three hours later we arrived in Cabanconde. Not without a hassle though. Two guys at two different points on the trip boarded the bus for 20 minutes and tried to sell these ¨tourism tickets.¨ I had read about this in my travel book that you DONT have to buy these even though they tell you that you do. I think they were $15 each and they get you into 8 various travel hot spots along the canyon. We didn´t want to go to any of those spot so we didn´t want to purchase the tickets. The first guy took ¨no¨ for an answer but the second guy... wooo wee he was a tough one. He was soooo mad when we said no that he threatened to call the police and said I HAD to buy the ticket. I kept persistantly saying ¨no gracias¨and he TOOK MY PICTURE on his phone and said he was going to report me and that I couldn´t stay in Cabanaconde! That I wasn´t welcome there! I said ¨ok¨and when we got off the bus we walked away into a store to buy some water and he gave us one more plea. ¨Señora por favor.¨ After thrity minutes or so I think he realized we weren´t the dummies that he thought we were. All we knew about Cabanaconde was that there was a ¨short hike¨down to the bottom of the canyon that takes you to a Sangalle (oasis). Since we didn´t have jackets or sleeping bags we thought we would hike down two hours and back up four hours and then get a hotel in Cabanaconde. The hike down was slippery (Prati fell four times:), toe nail jamming, and knee crunching, BUT sooo worth the knee pain! We passed three crosses and couldn´t help but think if it was possible that people died hiking out of this canyon. Maybe lack of water? Slip and fall? Did we have enough water? Was there food at the oasis? We had only had a banana and some crackers before the hike. At the bottom of the canyon we finally came to the Oasis! There were four pools, a restaurant, waterfalls, fruit trees, flowers, and huts made of bamboo to sleep in with lots of blankets. Paradise! We quickly decided to spend the night! I felt a little bit like the tourists on the movie ¨The Beach¨who find a map and try to go to paradise. These guys created this mini paradise and I couldn´t help but feel like I was intruding. It only cost $3 per person to sleep there, but I highly doubt the sheets had ever been washed and I had to brush the fleas off the bed before falling asleep.
We woke up at 530am and were on the trail by 6. Multiple people told us that it would take four hours to hike up and MAYBE three if you were super fast. I´m not gonna lie I just wanted to get it over with. We decided if we limited our water/rest breaks that we could knock it out in three hours. The altitude and my backpack were working together like partners in crime trying desperately to suck my breath from my lungs and the cold air snuck in and helped out as an accomplice. I was having a difficult time breathing for sure. Not to mention my calves felt detatched from the bone from the previous days hike. We stopped for a quick break after 45 mins, then again after 40 mins, and once again after 35mins. Then ba BAM we were there in TWO hours!!! I felt like I could have done it again! I couldn´t believe my eyes when we saw the town at 8am. YESSS!
45 minutes later were were back on the bus passed out headed to Arequipa for one more night in the White City.
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