Arequipa and Colca Canyon

Ew! Cuy! Ew! Guinnea pig is not for me, I have to say. Too many remaining hairs.
So sketched out right there. I´m eating a guinnea pig´s haunch... what´s not to be sketched out about? Honestly, they have a really gross fat to meat ratio and the skin is super chewy. It had to be done once but certainly not twice.
This is Colca canyon at the Cruz del Condor (condor cross, see below). It´s above where the condors nest in the side of the canyon. It turns out that Colca canyon is actually the deepest in the world but not here. At this point it´s about 1500m deep. The deepest point is 4100m or something close to that. When we first got there it was ridiculously foggy but it cleared up half decently with time. I promise that we did get to see condors close up (about 10m away) but they always waited until the camera was off, those buggers. They really are awe-inspiring. We´ve seen other really big birds on this trip so I wasn´t sure that I´d be impressed... but they are really really big birds with really really big talons. It truly did take your breath away.
Clayton at the cross which gives Cruz del Condor it´s name. You can see the clouds are still really thick above us.
The Colca Valley, absolutely covered in terracing for farming. There´s nothing THAT spectacular about the valley and the small towns in it except for the sheer coverage of the terraces. Oh and we stayed in a town which had nice hot baths, which is always spectacular.

So we are back in Arequipa for one more day of sightseeing. Tomorrow we have a river rafting trip booked to give us one last adrenaline kick and then it´s the night bus back to Cusco (NOT looking forward to the 11 hour bus ride!). We have a flight from Cusco to Lima on the 22nd and we leave from Lima that night (at 5 minutes past midnight on the 23rd). Then it´s a full day of planes until we finally land in Victoria at 4:30pm. When you take into account the time change that´s about 19 hours of travel. This may be the last post before we get home! Though I may get one more in there in Cusco if anything particularly interesting happens. Lots of love to everyone, we will see you very soon. Merry almost Christmas!

-Dawn