Colca Canyon part 3

Our second day in the Colca Canyon was also wonderful. We hiked for three hours and came to the touristy Oasis. It had a pool and the weather allowed us to swim both before and after lunch. The view was impressive and the other travellers were friendly. I ended up playing volleyball with a couple of Frenchmen and a South American man who thought that the game was made better by him using his head and feet instead of his arms and hands to play with. All in all the day was leisurely, warm, and entirely enjoyable. The day ended after a candle lit dinner as we were to make a 5am start to our hike out of the canyon the next day.

Our hike out was 1,000 meters of pure joy. We were told it would take three hours but we completed it in two. It was quite difficult due to the steep trail and especially the steps. We ate breakfast at the nearby town, played with a couple of delightful children, and caught our bus out of town. The drive was much more pleasant as we were not trying to make up for lost time. We made a few stops along the way and finally came to a buffet lunch.

Ashley and I were going to try to find something different because of the cost of the buffet but after seeing the dishes we threw caution to the wind and ate, and ate, and ate. We tried alpaca, a delicious guacamole, soups, a stuffed hot pepper that sent my sweat glands into overdrive, and of course delicious breads.

We finished our journey traveling back up to 5k, stopping to see Alpaca, Llama, and Vicuna. We also stopped to see an impressive ring of Volcanos in the area. We arrived safely back at La Posada del Virrey and have been here since, sorting through pictures, writing down our adventures, seeing different parts of the city, and relaxing. Tonight is a New Years celebration in the town square that we will be going to and tomorrow night we will be hopping on a bus for the ten hour ride to Cuzco where we will be waiting our turn to see Machu Picchu and the surrounding culture of the city.