Cabanaconde and the Colca Canyon

Tyler ended up being sick for the 3am bus ride but he made it! The views the whole way to Cabanaconde were wonderful but I didn't see much of it, I was trying really hard to comfort Tyler because the bumpy windy roads were not helping him feel better.

     The town was tiny and we found a place to stay quite easily because we had two options. A little later we went for a hike along the edge of the canyon. It was wonderful to look down into the canyon and see the vast amount of space between us and the ground. We hiked for quite awhile, until Tyler started throwing up and then we turned around and walked back.

We stopped so Tyler could have a break, he was sitting on the ground and I was on a rock when we felt the earth shake. It was only the second earthquake either of us has ever felt. I could see the earth moving!! It was pretty cool, but also made us grateful that we weren't hiking into the canyon because we'd seen lots of evidence of rock and earth slides and we didn't want to be caught up in that.

Tyler slept for awhile in the room, then we watched most of the movie 'Up', well we watched it until the power went out. Then we went for a little walk on the couple streets that make up Cabanaconde.

The Plaza de Armas

After we'd seen all the little broken homes and shops we went back to our hotel to eat dinner. I read in the room and Tyler was asleep before 7pm.

Veggie and quinoa soup

Our light source

The next morning we took the local bus back to Arequipa, this time I was able to gawk out the window the whole way :)

The bus went through so many different climates! We did our best to sleep through the desert, snow, hail, etc.

payback..

Once at the bus station we taxied to the center, did some tourist shopping and went to eat at a restaurant that I really wanted Tyler to try. It's called Hatunpa and basically they have one dish, potatoes, and you get to choose what you want to have on them. Peru is known for its potatoes and I believe our dishes came with 8 types of potatoes. The owner was really kind and helpful, he gave us a piece of paper with 80 some countries flags and the way that country says "potato" and we had to guess as many as we could. We really didn't do so well but he gave us free chicha morada anyway! Our food took a little while but we didn't mind because we were occupied with our flags.

My potatoes were topped with carrots, olives, corn, and cheese. Tyler's had llama and peppers and a thick sauce. Sometimes I think we couldn't be more opposite!

We got our stuff packed up and left Arequipa for Ica.