Viaje-Puno

Our bus ride from Arequipa to Puno was around 8 hours of absolute horrible driving.  We first arrive in Juliaca, a city around 45 minutes away from Puno.  We ate some food there and got on a chombi to Puno.  When we got there we spent a good while searching for our hotel in the pouring rain.  It rains so hard there that the streets literally become rivers.  That night we went with some of Gabriel's friends to the club and had a pretty wild night coming back home around 4 or 5 am.  The next day we went to the lake Titicaca which was absolutely beautiful (unfortunately my camera got stolen the next day and the pictures aren't here.)  We were there for quite a while and returned in the afternoon to buy our tickets for seats at the festival the next day.  After running some errands to the bus empresa we sent the girls home and hit the bar.  For quite a while we played dice at the bar with huge vases full of rum&coke.  We met some girls and hit the club, we partied super hard: whiskey getting fed to me upside down on a bar, and dancing for 7 hours.  The details of the rest of the night are rather obscure ;) but all in all it was an extremely crazy night.  The next day we woke up rather early (impressively so) and went to the street where our seats were waiting for us.  For the next six hours we watched La Festival Virgen de la Candelaria, it was an absolutely beautiful festival.  People of all ages danced through the street in some of the most well done costumes I have ever seen.  Everyone present was having an apparently endless supply of beer, and other various liquors.  There were many women drinking straight scotch when they were around 80 some odd years old.  Although I have yet to learn exactly what the festival is celebrating, since noone is able to provide a good answer, the best I learned yet was this: "The festival has two main phases. The first is El Dia Pincipal y Su Ritios in which a procession carries the statue of the Virgen around the city, and dancers in lavish costumes from all walks of life join the parade. The dancers, by group, pause in front of the cathedral to be blessed with holy water, after which they are cooled with water thrown from nearby houses."     From then on we continued to dance and party in the street until we finally loaded back into the bus, exhausted from the four days behind us.  All in all Puno was an amazing city with wonderful scenery and amazing people, the truly live up to the name of the  Folkloric Capital of Peru.

 

Viaje-Arequipa

We arrived in Arequipa around 1 on Tuesday and were  taken to the hotel by my brothers friend Carlos.  There we were given extremely cheap rooms as my brother knows the owner.  The hotel  where we are staying at is very nice and in a cute part of the center.  The first day we walked around, got lunch, and checked out all the local stores.  We returned to the hotel and made the reservations for our tour to the Colca the next day.  That night around 9 we went out with my brother and his four girlfriends to do some leisure drinking.  We ended up coming around 230 back to the hostel and left for the Colca around 3am.  It was a horrible idea to get there so late as we were extremely tired for our hike.  We arrived at Chivay, the start-off point for the Colca hike, around 5 hours later.  We began hiking around 9 and ended up at the cabins around 7 hours later.  In total the first day we hiked 15 kilometers and descended over one kilometer in elevation.  We had dinner around 7 and fell asleep moments later, waking up around 430 in the morning to begin the final ascent.  We did a straight one kilometer ascent to the top, I finished the climb in around an hour and a half, pretty record time for me since it was 9 kilometers.  We stayed some time in Cabanaconde having breakfast and then began the seven hour drive back to Arequipa, which turned out to be nine hours since the streets were destroyed from mud slides the night before.  We arrived back around 6pm the most tired ever.  Overall the Colca was the most beautiful place I have ever been.  I've officially now been to the deepest canyon in the world.    

 
     
 
 

Mi Viaje Familiar- Day 1 Piura - LIma

On sunday around 4pm we got on a bus in Piura and arrived in Lima some 26 hours later.  Lima has truly an enormous size and would never be properly visited in a day (we're returning there on 16.)  There we bought the tickets and met up with my friend Nick and his brother, they will be joining us on our trip around the south of Peru.  We had a nice day walking around the city, notably this beautiful park placed atop of cliffs looking upon the ocean.  The day was rather foggy but it seemed to fit in nice with the cold gray beach, and the tall buildings.  Around the park there were extremely nice gardens, and workout areas, as well, stairs were available to access the beach.  Another thing that came to interest were the paragliding rides that were given off the cliff.  Later we continued walking until we found a nice buffet style place to eat.  Following lunch, we hopped on a public bus and made our way across town to the Plaza de Armas,the centre.  We walked around for a while snapping photos of the monuments.  We then returned back to the bus station and began the long ride (18hr) to the city of Arequipa. Land of the Colca.

  
  

  
 
 

 

A Day of Adventure in Chulucanas

Hola, yesterday I had a great time on our recent trip to the nearby city of Chulucanas.  My brother and I loaded the Piura-Chulucans bus around 7 am as we wanted to be there before it got to hot.  The bus ride was real short (40 mins or so) when we arrived we met up with my brothers friend from university, Lucho.  We went around on his motorcycle looking at all the beautiful areas in the city.  In 40 minutes we had gone from the dry and arid landscape of Piura, to a lush jungle setting.  Later around miday we took the motorcycle up along the river, towards the mountains.  When we arrived to the highest point of the river we found a calm place and hopped into the icy water, it was a huge relief from the 38 C temperature.  (Here we also encountered one of the largest sketchiest spiders I've ever seen,photo below.)  We swam for a while then returned to make it for lunch before having to catch the bus back to Piura.  That night in Piura I went out and got some burgers with friends from school I hadnt seen in a while.  Now today Im heading off to a day-time going away party for an AFS student. Adiosss.