Vicuñas, llamas, alpacas and condors oh my!

The last two days were full of new sights and adventures. We left Arequipa early Tuesday morning for our tour of the Colca Canyon in the Peruvian highlands. There were eight of us on our tour. A couple from England, a couple from Italy and two girls from Germany. Our bus driver Coco (nickname for Jorge) was a fantastic driver and very funny. He taught me some Spanish jokes which I've written down to share with some of you when I get home. Our tour guide Daniel looked like a cross between Little Ritchie and Omar Gadaffi. He was an ex-Harry Krishna... Self proclaimed mystic/ yogi.... A very interesting man to say the least.  The views were amazing, very green mountains and snow capped volcanos. The first wildlife we saw were the Vicuñas, these little animals look similar to llamas, and have the second softest wool in the world (first would be cashmere).  Next we would seen hundreds and hundreds of llamas and alpacas. It was amazing to see all these animals in their natural habitat.  As we got higher and higher up in altitude we could feel the effects of the thinner air. You feel like you ran hard for 10mins when all you did was get out of the van!  Half way up to the summit we stopped for a cup of coca tea, this really helped with the adjustment to the altitude. And is really yummy too. I even bought honey flavored coca candies. The summit of our trip was 4910 metered which is 16,100 feet!!! That is some thin air! When we arrived in Colca we made our way to Coporaque village where our hotel was, it was such a beautiful hotel with an amazing view of the valley. We had lunch here as a group and both Katie and I ate Alpaca!!! It was delicious! It's really hard to describe what it tastes like kind of between lamb and beef. There is no fat on alpaca so the texture was amazing too. You just have to try it yourself.  After lunch we went on a short 20minute hike to get an excellent view of the valley below. We passed many locals carrying the loads of wood and crops on their backs, guiding their donkeys and horses to their fields. One of their main crops in this area is quinoa, we saw field after field of quinoa.  After our hike we headed to the hot springs which are heated naturally under ground by one of the surrounding volcanos. The temp of the water when it comes out of the ground is 80 degrees! You can boil an egg in 5 mins. The pools were very warm a nice contrast to the freezing temperature outside. It was relaxing to soak in the warm water surrounded by mountains. The water was clean enough but the bottom of the pools were a bit slimy.... Felt good to have a shower afterwards haha.  Wednesday morning we were up early to be on the road by 630am! Our breakfast was amazing, it was a spread of different grains/ wheats that were all locally grown.  We arrived at the Cuz del Condor by 8am... It was a bit disappointing we waited for an hour and a half to catch a glimpse of the condors that live in the canyon. But it was so foggy that we couldn't even see the mountains or the bottom of the canyon... This is the deepest canyon in the world!  It was a beautiful sight to see the fog roll in and out of the canyon going us little views of the mountains and canyon below.  We all left the Cruz del Condor a little disappointed but what can you do. What we did see was very beautiful just different from what we were expecting.  We got a little ways down the road and our driver pulled over super quick rushing us all out of the van....WE FOUND CONDORS!!!! They were a ways away so once again our fantastic driver got us all back in the bus and took of down the road for a better view. Six condors were now flying right over our heads!! These are amazing birds, from beak to tail they can be 5feet tall and their wing span is 10 feet!!!  Our day was complete we got to see the condors yeah!!  On our way back as we got closer and closer to the summit we started seeing this white stuff.... SNOW!!! Yep all of you that were jealous that we were in nice hot weather we found snow.... The highway had quite abit on it. And they say it only snows there in August... Aren't we just special! It was such a beautiful sight though. And since it was cold the last two days we each bought alpaca toques to keep warm.  And I'm reporting this blog on the bus on our way to Puno....