Peru IV: Condors and Crafts

 

“This was my favorite day of the Peru trip, so far,” Mike said, on October 6, 2022.  We left the lovely Colca Lodge at 7 a.m. to drive to Colca Canyon, which is the deepest canyon in the Americas and the second deepest canyon in the world.  Our guide told us that the front-runner is in Tibet.  Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.  

Our first stop, on the way, was Yanque, a sleepy Peruvian town where a group of high school students were dancing on the town square.  The dancing seemed as formless as the “rock” dancing of America, in which you don’t need partners and you just twirl and rock in time to the music. 

 I bought an indestructible Andean doll from a very serious-faced seller.  The doll portrayed a native girl holding a toy llama.  I bought it to add it to my collection of dolls that the grandchildren pull out every Sunday.

One of the popular Peruvian alcoholic drinks is pisco.  Our guide offered tour members a bit of this type of pisco, with a dead snake preserved inside!  I remember riding a boat down the Chinese Li River near beautiful Guilin and also being offered alcohol with a snake preserved inside the bottle.  I consider that drink as attractive as fried guinea pig!

I always thought of the Andes as lush and green, but this southcentral part of Peru was both high and dry.  

Much of the land was terraced and the guide said it was actually very fertile, with water from the mountains.  Much of America's winter produce comes from Peru.  This area of the country grows avocados and other hot weather crops, like those that flourish in Arizona.

As we neared Colca Canyon, we stopped behind a line of buses to ogle at the six condors, with wing spans of 13 feet, soaring in the air above us.  We were lucky to see that collection of amazing birds since, when we actually got to Colca Canyon, we saw only one condor, although he swooped excitingly low.  

Colca Canyon is huge and deep, with stark, gray cliffs and a narrow stream far, far below.  It was awe-inspiring.  

Viewing platforms allowed tourists to get better canyon views.

There weren't many real condors soaring over Colca Canyon, but there was this stuffed one!

On our way back from Colca Canyon, we stopped at another small Peruvian village, Maca, where we sampled a local drink made of the Sancayo cactus.  The cactus is prickly on the outside and spotted within, like dragon fruit.  The drink tasted like kiwi fruit. 

Women in embroidered skirts, blouses, and hats lined the town square with their llamas, ready for pictures with the tourists.  Mike and I picked the llamas with the cutest faces .

We also visited the town church in Maca. It was in the churresqueria style, or “Baroque plus.”  

There were panel after panel of statues of saints with gold leaf filigree surrounding them.  How lucky, I thought, for little Maca village to have such a fine church.

As I watched little girls light candles in the church, I thought of my granddaughter, Sophia, who visited a Catholic church as a little girl, and then said she was not going back to an LDS church until the bishop got candles!

We then visited a family at their home workshop.  The mother was a weaver. 

She had a sheep (or alpaca?) hide on a stool next to her, from which she made wool thread.

The father showed us how he made purses decorated with machine embroidery on his sewing machine.   Their little girl (granddaughter?) modeled native dress and danced for us.

We then dressed up in native clothes and took our turns dancing in the street outside.

Dave and I were both exhausted when we returned to Colca Lodge at 2 p.m.  I slept for 2 hours and then worked at my computer for another couple of hours.  Mike got a massage at the spa, visited the nearby alpaca farm, and soaked again in the hot pools.  Dave talked with our children, back in the States, and tried to get over his altitude sickness.  We then joined our tour group for another elegant dinner at the lodge.