Arequipa Arequipa Arequipa!!!!

After Cuzco Kelly and I took a day bus for 10hrs to Arequipa in the south of Peru. We stayed in an amazing hostel totally by accident and really lucked out. This place had a full kitchen so we could finally cook for ourselves although it is soooo cheap to buy food out that cooking really doesnt make any sense. Seriously it could be 4 soles for a meal for one which is less than $2. Or we could buy our own food to cook and it costs about 40 soles. This hostel also had a pool table, ping pong, patio to tan, movie room, foosball, and its own covered indoor soccer field! Just amazing. We met with our friends from the hotel and spent some time in a very old monestary that was fabulously painted and quite ancient.

The main draw on the backpackers trail for Arequipa is a place called the Colca Canyon. We had had this place hyped up quite a bit by many people we had met along the way and were very excited to check it out. So we booked a 2 day tour. One day down the canyon and staying at an oasis at the bottom, and then up early the next morning to walk back out. This is reportedly the deepest canyon in the world but once you see why, it doesnt have that grandeur you would expect. There is one really deep section but otherwise it is not the deepest. It isnt formed anything like the Grand Canyon.  It has sloped sides instead of abrupted sides.  Our guide was on the phone the whole time because they recently got cell service in the canyon so the experience was not what we had hoped for. The oasis at he bottom was beautiful though.

 One benefit was meeting three middle aged Spanish guys who take all of their vacation time to travel around the wolrd together and climb mountains. They had several days before climed one near town called Mt. Misti. It is a semi-extinct volcano that overshadows the town at 5880 meters or so.
With their stories my interest was peaked and I realized that we need to take this opportunity to get some big mountain experience. We decided to climb another close mountain called Mt. Chachani. This one has more ice on the top and gave us the opportunity to get in crampons and use ice axes. Plus, this peak is 6075 meters and is very very near 20,000 feet!
We took off early in the morning equiped with rental gear and ready to summit a huge peak. We had a group of ten and two guides and drove to a spot at about 5100meters above sea level. From there with our overnight gear and everything we needed to take on this challenge we walked about an hour and a half to base camp at 5300 meters. We had a brief opportunity for some free walking around in order to help acclaimate to the extreme altitude.

We walked around this moonscape for a while and saw many little viscahcas running around. Theyre alot like chinchillas. We returned in time for dinner of noodles, tuna, and spaghetti sauce. Then as the sun went down and the temperatures followed we quickly got into our tents and bundled up. It was 6 pm. There was no possibility of sleep. Not only was is freezing cold, about -6c, but the altitude makes it really hard to breathe and everyone had headaches. We were roused at midnight to get some tea and white bread before taking on the mountain. The whole group with headlamps, bundled in all of the clothes we had, and sleep deprived we headed up behind well paced guides. Slowy but surely the hours rolled on. This was the longest night we could imagine. The cold was to the bone and no one could feel thier toes. The pace dragged on and it never seemed like we were getting anywhere as the scene in the dark never changed. But eventually the light began to come and our mountainous beast finally showed itself.

We were treated to a beautiful sunrise on top of the world. The cold not abating with the early sun we continued on step by agonizing step until finally we had reached the summit and conquered Mount Chachani at 6075meters! That was an amazing day.