Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

Arequipa, meaning the White City, has a lot (not surprisingly) of white

 volcanic rock called sillar which was in abundance here.

Spanish Church - the Iglesia de la Compania - the facade 
is covered in both Christian and Inca holy symbols to help  
integrate the locals into a Catholic acceptance.

Santa Catalina Monastery - the laundry, the only place where the nuns

could gossip. With their hands they diverted  the flow of clean water in

the central gully to fill the huge terracotta bowls, for their washing.

Avocado, I think

Sights in Arequipa

We used Arequipa as a base and for a few days visited the Colca Canyon ..

.

On route to the Colca Canyon, Alpaca herds. Even at this height of 
about 10,500 feet there were flamingos feeding in the distant wetlands.

There were also some unusual ducks, some with blue bills, and waders. 

Unfortunately those pics were lost

At the Colca pass (below) ...

This is a rare kind of moss, I think only found here at high altitude (16,000 feet). It looks

lovely and soft but is hard as nails. Nigel may be able to remind me of its name :)

same, close up

The summit of the pass to the Colca Canyon
The Canyon is the world´s deepest, more than the Grand Canyon.

It´s popular with people hoping to see and photograph Condors.

Inevitable tack for sale at the summit.

watching out for Condors - we did see and photograph them, 
but again the pics were lost.

We stayed in Chivay, in the Colca region. These were school-girls who spend several 
hours each morning in January dancing roung the village square and fountain. 
The dances are a means of preserving stories of their Inca past.

History has it that the Spanish Conquistadores forced the men folk into nearby mines to dig for gold and kept them from their families. So the men tunneled their way back to the villages and when all the women suddenly appeared pregnant, the Spanish executed all the families - men women and children.

The Colca Valley - a rich and fertile area that the Incas acquired

from the previous occupants. They improved on the terracing and

irrigation to develop a much cherished agricultural region


The village market, Chivay

Volcano on route to Cusco

South to Arequipa

This was without doubt one of the scariest trips we´ve ever been on.

Andean foothills

The road south is across dry barren desert, bordering the Pacific. The road winds through weathered foothills of the Andes, often opening onto steep cliffs over the pounding surf. There were moments when the flimsy crash-barrier, for what it´s worth, appeared to disappear beneath the coach and I´d find myself staring down 3 or 4 hundred metres onto deep red rocks engulfed by the mighty Pacific waves.

The Pacific beckons.....

The driver sped relentlessly on, full-pelt round the bends. Often there was no barrier at all. As I was by the window I didn´t tell Jane and left her engrossed in her book, blissfully unaware!

No crash-barrier here      >:-@

Between these moments of excitement, the landscape was bleak, with the occasional fisherman´s bivouac made of brightly coloured plastic fertilizer bags and old carpets laid over crude driftwood frames.

The occasional dolorous donkey brightened up the landscape.

Then it was eastward inland to Arequipa, at 12.5 thousand feet.

Looking back north along the coast

Peasants on the distant beach collecting sea-weed 

for agriculture and pharmaceutical purposes

The Lines and geoglyphs

The next day, still in Nazca, we took a flight over the Nazca plains to view the famed lines

Lines across the valley

Trapezoid

The Whale

´The Astronaut´

The Monkey

The Dog

The Hummingbird

The Spider

The Phoenix

The Seaweed

The Pelican or flamingo

The Hands

The Tree and Hands (the vehicles indicate their size)

We then were taken to a gold-panning  demo where they use mercury to form an amalgam with crushed ore. This is squeezed thro a fine cloth mesh to express the mercury out of the mixture and the residual sludge is picked through to find small gold nuggets. This is a different technique to that used in rivers. The remaining sludge is then sold on to companies for more refined recovery of further gold residues. Not really sure this was a legal set-up!
Afraid no pics of this.

NON-POTTERS BEWARE!

And then to a small pottery which was interesting to us. Very different to the pottery we are trying to learn in Symondsbury.

Jenny uses a much softer clay mix - fine sand is mixed with the clay to make it very malleable

She uses a small oven with broken shards of terracotta to retain the heat. This is heated with charcoal in the oven itself to a temperature of only 500 deg C as compared with the usual temp of well over 1000 deg C

Nazca

After Ica, it was Nazca.

Our guide in Nazca first took us to the nearby ´Cementerias´, a pre-Inca burial ground that´s been restored to show how they were mummified and buried in the foetal position. The graves had previously been ransacked and bones scattered over a large area. Archeologists have re-created the graves but left some of them open for visitors. All rather grim.

Covered but exposed grave

Meet the family

This pic demonstrates the elongation of the skull achieved by binding the head from childhood. It was only the high ranking families that did this to show their dignity and authority.

The Nazca lines

Next instalment (Nazca lines ) later today

To Nazca via Ica

After Paracas, it was on to Ica, and then to Nazca - famous for the Nazca Lines.

Ica was rather grim, as it was seriously damaged in the earthquake of 2007. Virtually no buildings were left intact, and it is currently mostly shacks. However our hotel was new and very comfortable.

Our guide took us to the inevitable museum with ceramic , gold and textile artefacts, and of course more mummies. They love their mummies :)

We then visited a Bodego - where they distil Pisco (brandy), a national drink.
The best way to drink it is a ´Pisco Sour´, mixed with lime juice and topped with whipped egg-white and a touch of cinnamon on top

Jane with our guide, Laylee. The tub is a deep vat  in which the grapes are processed

This is normally full of cold water to distil the spirit

the distillate is tapped, tested for strength and then poured into one of those clay containers which is sunk into the ground to keep it cool

Vats

Tasting!

Rubble piles on sides of road, mingle with building materials for re-builds

Typical scene of half-restored homes

Pottery and ceramics, Ica