Driving to the Colca valley

Yes, we are back in Alberta with its snow and cold, back to icy roads and warm clothing, but also crisp sunny days which soon, very soon, will slowly start getting longer again ... We've only been home for three days, and already the impressions from our journey are fading rapidly. The difference is just too great, and as usual I'm scrambling to recall what it really felt like to be immersed so completely. There is a little left to be told, and I will try to wrap it up before too much more time has passed.  A little over a week ago, on Tuesday, December 10, we embarked on an overnight trip to the Colca valley and Colca canyon. Ana, the owner of the wonderful B&B 'La Casa de Ana' where we stayed for the three nights we spent in Arequipa, not only served the most delicious and generous breakfast we ate during our four-week stay but also helped us book a tour to the Colca valley and Colca canyon, at 3,191m deep the (almost) deepest canyon in the world. After some dispute this title now belongs to nearby Cotahuasi canyon, which is about 150m deeper.  We found about twenty people from different parts of the world assembled in the bus that picked us up at about eight-thirty, plus Peter (or Pedro), our local tour guide. Before we even left the city Peter had the bus stop in front of a store: we were, he firmly suggested, going to get supplies to counteract the effects of high altitude we most likely would encounter during our trip to the Colca valley, about a hundred and sixty kilometres northwest of Arequipa.  There were several different means to achieve this, he told us, from eating chocolate and hard candy to drinking copious amounts of water, but the most effective – used by the highland people for centuries – was to chew coca leaves. These, too, were available freely in the store, as they are everywhere in Peru and Bolivia, the only two countries in the world where it is legal to use them. Peter gave us a long lecture about the active ingredients in coca leaves: cocaine is only one of fourteen alkaloids contained in this plant and is in no way harmful, he assured us. If we were unsure if we should use this ancient method to combat altitude sickness, however, we could eat coca candy or drink coca tea, or simply keep eating chocolate – not as effective, but better than not taking anything.  Johann and I felt reasonably adapted to the altitude by now: we had spent a considerable amount of time well above 3000m since we arrived in Peru, without suffering from anything worse than some shortness of breath from time to time, and likely feeling a bit more tired than usual. Still I, at least, was going to give it a shot: I was curious, more regarding the taste than the effect.  Instead of the demonstration of how to use oxygen masks and life jackets on a plane we were now given detailed instructions on the proper way to prepare a coca leaf ‘plug’. ‘Take about twenty-five leaves’, Peter said, showing us how to roll up a piece of the activator/catalyst (either a piece of calcium or a piece of a black, rubbery substance which, he said, is derived from quinoa ashes). You then pop this wad into your mouth and chew it for a bit to make it pliable, holding it between cheek and gum whenever you're not chewing. According to Peter we needed to chew for about twenty minutes, and renew the coca plug about once every hour or hour and a half. If we had opted for coca candy or chocolate these, too, needed to be ingested about every thirty or forty-five minutes in order to be as effective as possible.    I had been feeling a bit queasy from the time I got up that morning and realized that I had likely caught the bug Johann had struggled with a few days before, so it probably wasn't the best day to try out this 'wonder drug'. The prospect of chewing on a bunch of dry leaves with something that looked, but didn't taste like black licorice was not very enticing to me. Yet, if I wanted to use it for problems with the altitude this was the time to do it.   Bravely I bit down on the wad: it tasted about as expected, and I persevered, determined to see it through. The road climbed higher and higher, and I did as instructed and rolled up the second batch of leaves after about an hour and a half. By then I wasn't feeling great at all and finally decided I'd rather suffer from the altitude than from the dubious pleasure of chewing coca leaves.  It had been cloudy all morning, and the higher we climbed the foggier it got. Slight drizzle turned to real rain at times, but from time to time the clouds tore open to reveal a shred of blue. The landscape was spectacular: the eyes could roam freely across the plains until they came to rest on the white-capped mountains in the distance.  The road continued to climb. Herds of llama and alpaca foraged on the short, sparse grass. Pre-Inca cultures had domesticated these hardy animals already, and ever since the people of these high planes have relied on them for sustenance, using everything they have to offer, from wool for their clothing and beautiful woven textiles to meat, hide, bones and sinews.  They are the two domesticated camelids that can be found in the Andes, while guanaco and vicuña are their wild counterparts. Guanacos are rare here; they are much more prolific in Chile and Argentina. Their bigger size and black faces make it easy to tell them apart from the vicuñas that roam the altiplano of Bolivia and Peru.  Peter told us that once a year the vicuñas are rounded up and shorn and immediately released into the wild again. Their very fine, soft wool is highly prized, but they are supposed to stay wild and are not herded or kept in corrals like their tamer cousins.  Llamas and alpacas are kept mainly for their wool nowadays, and we saw many herds either roaming freely or kept in corrals surrounded by fences made of the only abundant building material: rocks. We heard that harsh winters can claim the lives of many animals; pneumonia is a common problem in the cold, wet climate. Peter made sure we knew how to tell all of the camelids apart. Coats of Guanacos and vicuñas have only one colour, a beautiful gold-beige. Llamas are the bigger of the two domesticated family members, with longer legs, necks and faces. Alpacas, their fur particularly thick, look like a chubbier version of their big cousins. The coats of both can be white, black and many shades of brown or beige.   And still we were climbing higher. The sky seemed to descend ever lower until the clouds almost touched the ground. The high altitude made us sluggish, despite the efforts to combat its effects on our bodies. Drizzle and rain had turned to sleet, sometimes even light snow when the bus stopped: we had reached the highest point of our journey, for most of us likely the highest point we’d ever reach. At 4,910m we were a full hundred metres higher than Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the European Alps – what a strange idea.  We stumbled out of the bus and looked around: a small army of little ‘inukshuks’- rocks piled up to form little pyramids – had been assembled on both sides of the road by travellers awed by their surroundings. Erecting one of those little pyramids seemed a most natural thing to do: honouring what the Inca and pre-Inca cultures already had held most sacred: the mountains.

'You are now seasoned altitude travellers', Peter told us. 'Nothing you will encounter on your travels in Peru can faze you anymore after this.'

An hour later we had reached the small town of Chivay in the Colca valley where we would spend the rest of the afternoon and the night. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling any better, so the activities suggested for the afternoon and evening - a visit to nearby hot springs and an opportunity to see a fiesta first hand - would have to take place without me.

Young men on their way to the fiesta