Trabajando por mi cena

Hola todos! I am back in the real world of cars and wifi, and am happy to give you a recap of our last couple of days. AfteR blogging in Chivay, we went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and saw the local native dances and music with our dinner. After dinner I even got pull up to dance with one of the Peruvian gents, which resulted in me having to hit him with a long bit of rope, and concluded with him hoisting me over his shoulder and spinning me around. I should not be laughing that hard at that altitude! The next morning we woke up early and got on out bus to go and visit Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world (in the words of one of my fellow travelers "take that, Nevada"). On the way we stopped at a look out to have our first look are some Inca terraces, which are basically levels cut out of mountain sides which are used for irrigation (google it if you are confused!). They are so amazing! It made me even more excited to see Machu Pitchu, as the terraces are everywhere there. When we got to the Colca Canyon, we were just in time to see the resident Condors (a species of vulture with a wing span of 3m) take their morning flights into the canyon!! For a vulture, they really are an amazing bird, and it seems that they were more than happy to fly directly over us in order the get the best shot! We also saw the resident finch, which made this sound that I will never forget. I'll describe it as a sort of vibrational humming. After an hour watching the Condors, we took a hike along the canyon. Wow... Just wow. The scenery alone made up for the fact that I couldn't breath for most of the hike (we were at over 3000m). We then hoped back on the bus, and after a couple of stops to see an Inca tomb and a church at a small town called Maca, we arrived in Sibayo, where we would stay the night with one of the local families. Firstly, I want to be clear on the nature of these home stays. The families we stay with have some form of tourism qualifications, and are paid to have us come and stay. We are also not the first group of people to stay with them. Ok, on with my story, When we disembarked the bus, we got introduced to our house mama Julia, then we walked to her house to drop off our things. Our room was so nice! We then got all dresses up in the traditional clothing, me a skirt, jacket and hat, and Steve a poncho and hat, and then walked a few kms to help her hack up some of this shrub, which she dries out and uses for fire wood. One other thing, Julia only speaks Spanish and Quechua, the native inca language, so this put my Spanish to the test. Luckily, and I don't know how, we happened to communicate quite well!! I was pretty psyched! When we got back from getting fire wood, we headed over to one of Julia's friends houses and met the rest of the group for a traditional dinner. Ok... Wow! Firstly it was the healthiest dinner we have had since we got here (Peruvian food has a lot of carbs and since we are not allowed to eat salad for fear of a stomach bug, not a lot of veggies), secondly it was perfect, utilizing all of the ingredients the group collected during the afternoon. To start we had a soup with a nice grain and veggies, and for the main we had veggie omelette and rice! It was really great. After dinner we were escorted back to Julia's house, and feel asleep in our single beds. It was a pretty cold night, so we had to go to bed in jumpers and socks, but unlike what I feared, there was electricity, and let me tell you, awsome phone reception. I find that very amusing since I have poor phone reception at my house in belconnen!! We woke up early and had breakfast with Julia (rice and veggies with potato and alpaca meat. Julias husband is an alpaca farmer) then met the rest of the group in the main square for a photo with our house mamas. Then back on the bus for our next adventure!