Good for a Mediocre Person

For those of you who have been following my Peruvian adventure closely (I can’t really call it a telenovela, but I’m working on it), I feel an addenda is needed: I started writing an update for my family a while back, but then I wasn't sure if anyone else would like to read it or not. As I said, some explanations are in place as yes, my photos do speak for themselves, but then again, you don't really know what I’m up to. If you don't care to read this, that's fine also. Feel free to do whatever u want.

Now, I’ve just returned from visiting my Peruvian family and as one does, by telling them how my Colca Canyon trekking went I realized that it was an adventure indeed. When my beloved husband booked the future adventure, I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had just finished a month of working 6 days a week, commuting between schools and dealing with students whose Spanish needed correcting before dealing with their English, when Dave announced that we had to leave for the Colca Canyon at 3:30 in the morning. Why so early? Well, on the way, you stop at a place called the condors' cross presumably to see some condors flying above the canyon. All I saw were a bunch of condors hovering over some cattle in the distance, and more tourists that I would care to admit. Needless to say I wasn't too happy with this or the mini-bus we were all squeezed into (all the gringos that is).

When I said I didn't know what I got myself into, I wasn't lying. I thought trekking in the canyon would be like walking over rocks on the river banks, not going down a mountain for 8 km or climbing another 6. I did know or imagine we were going to stay in what u'd call pretty basic accommodation, but that doesn't mean anything to me. I’ve stayed in several-star hotels that were rubbish and/or overpriced. What I didn't expect was to be exposed to some rather, well, interesting situations.

After the longest walk of my life, we reached the bottom of the Canyon and had to cross a bridge. Needless to say we were the last ones but I personally was relived because I wasn’t the lamest one. We both were. Due to on old knee injury which he called at the time ‘housemaid’s knees’ (look it up), Dave was in pain every time we had to bend his right knee. It only hurt going down the mountain, but by the time we had gone down the mountain, we were exhausted and embarrassed for having had the rest of the group wait for us. We crossed the bridge, but had to climb up a very narrow rocky path on the side on the mountain. It was then when with Dave in front of me heavily leaning on newly acquired walking stick I started crawling behind him. I tried as hard as I could to clinging to the wall on my right, but that wasn't enough to keep me from looking to my left down into the sheer drop. I stopped breathing for a second and I think in my head I was already saying my last prayers. I was looking in horror at what seemed to be Dave’s wobbly legs and I wondered whether my end had come, when I hit my head against the wall. I had to stop as by this time I think I was already shaking and time had come to standstill. I couldn’t move and I had to will myself to move up one foot at a time to get to a place where I could get back to my senses. The path became flatter, but we were still dangerously close to the edge and the river was looming in the distance. Everyone was worried about Dave’s leg and as such nobody noticed me trembling and disregarded the look of horrified panic on my face. This gradually got better as we approached the campsite. The sweet fragrance of the fruit trees and the tropical paradise started to envelop me and I forgot all about what I had to go through to get there.

 

 

 

Anyway, that went away, and I finally decided to go to bed around 10 (we had to since I managed to arrange an earlier departure for the next morning given our ‘predicament’- Dave’s knee and my inability to breath without heaving every time we went up the mountain despite my asthma spray. Dave was already inside the bungalow sitting on the bed facing the door when he said in calmly voice: ’there’s a bat in here.’ I lifted my eyes, to see a poor bat flying in disarray from one side of the hut to the other behind an annoyed but calm Dave. I called out to one of our newly encountered friends who for whatever reason I trusted to be able to deal with this kind of situations (it was the same who shouted: fire! fire!), when he said:’ A bat?! They carry Ebola. And rabies.’ And as he hadn’t had his rabies shot at all and I still needed my third, I said: ’Dave, what are you still doing in there? Get out and let the bat get out too! So he did, to me relief and my amusement since I'm from Transylvania and all. Apparently my pet was waiting for me. Muahaha muahaha :).

 A couple minutes later happy that the bat was flying with the other bats around the tree behind somebody else’s hut, we decided to go to bed as one does in the eve of a big climb. I was climbing into bed with a miner’s torch on my head, when I noticed a tiny creepy-crawly on the wall beside my bed. Upon closer inspection, the creature revealed itself to be… wait for it… a scorpion. Yes, I have a picture to prove it. Ha! I wasn’t too scared because it wasn’t moving and it wasn’t too big, but still I said to myself: ‘it’s a scorpion. Go call the same friend (this before asking Dave what to do about it- you can guess what his reply wasJ). I went out and had my friend get out of bed to help me with the little thing. He came into our hut with his towel (?), climbed into bed over Dave and said :’ Ah! It’s not dangerous! We should kill it!’ and reached to remove his boot. Dave replied: ‘That’s what I said!’ and handed him his slipper. I whimpered, but since I had no better solution to save the night, I went ahead with it. I wasn’t too sure about how safe I was and as tiny as the scorpion was I didn’t want its sting near me. So, off went the scorpion on Dave’s slipper with a victory sound from my friend. I was beginning to wonder about this paradise oasis and life close to nature. I then remembered being shown a stuffed Andean snake in the museum village we visited that day and I said to Dave that I wanted him to check and make sure there were no coiled snakes in my bed. I wanted HIM to check. Poor old Dave. U never know when he comes in handy…

We finally went to sleep only to wake up the next day with a terrible pain in my left lung. I inhaled a few puffs and off we went. During the whole climb I was afraid something was going to give in. I had Dave’s old stick, and fewer things to carry, but still I walked with precaution taking it easy afraid something might pop, snap or something else. We left 30 minutes before the rest of the group, but happy we chose not to ride a mule. I would have felt ridiculous having the poor thing carry me. For some reason I thought mules were as small and frail as donkeys and the image of the stout Sancho Panza riding behind a slender idealist Don Quixote did cross my mind. So I saw myself riding a mule weighing less than me with its tongue hanging out dragging my feet all the way up the mountain.  This might have had something to do with a story our female guide told me regarding the anti-record of the Colca Canyon climb- 5 hours and 3 mules (a mule can only carry 120kg but can go up and down and up again in a day).


Anyway, we reached the top 4 long hours and 6 km later with our sticks and well behind our group. My lungs hadn’t given up on me and nothing had popped either. I had never done anything so physically strenuous in my life and neither had I been prepared for it. Neither was Dave, but his knee behaves and as long as he doesn’t put too much pressure on it going down, it doesn’t bother him too much going up. Still, I felt victorious for having done it even if the next 2 days I could barely move. I lost about 2kg so it was totally worth it. The views were spectacular and the whole experience once in the life time kinda thing. Except, I wanna do it again. This time for 4 days to take my time and enjoy everything I couldn’t the first time. So, pictures are not everything and most times, there is a story to tell. I'm looking forward to Dave and Christine coming over. I would like them to visit the Canyon. I think they will enjoy it. Minus the whole ‘Peruvian adventure’ bit .