Mike and Michele’s Global Wanderings

This is a combo blog written by both Mike and Michele… This is a blog on our trip to Colca Canyon where things did not go as planned, thanks to a tour agency called Pachamama Explorer (314 Jerusalen Street, Arequipa).  This company also appears to go by the names Wayra Explorer and Continental Explorer.  If you are a traveler reading this, you need take away only one message: DO NOT USE THIS AGENCY!

So, on to the blogging…

On April 29th, we arrived in Arequipa, Peru at about 6 p.m. We had not yet booked a place to stay so Mike looked around the bus station, found a phone card and attempted to use it. Unfortunately, either due to miscommunication with the vender or her desire to cheat a gringo, Mike bought a card for mobile phone minute re-charging, not for public phone use. So, after spending 20 Peruvian Soles, he went to a second vender to buy the correct phone card (another 5 Soles). A few minutes later he had succesfully called and booked a double room at La Casa de Sillar (which had formerly been called something different according to the Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring) on 504 Rivero. Twenty minutes later we checked into our large, beautiful room with bathroom at La Casa for a mere $16/night.

We did not do too much that night besides grab some food at a nearby vegetarian restaurant and check our email (internet cafes charge just .5 to 1 sole per hour which is about .16 to .32 $US!).  Here is a picture of the Plaza de Armas (central square) in downtown Arequipa (population 2 million people, 500,000 stray dogs).

Our plans for the next day (April 30th) were to set up a trek through the nearby Cañon del Colca and arrange the remaining domestic Peru flights with Lan Peru. After a nice breakfast at La Casa, we attended to our dental hygiene and headed out to do our business. The street famous for tour operators is Jeruselen which was just one block away from us. Unfortunately, this was Sunday morning and many of the tour agency offices weren´t yet open. As we walked down Jeruselen, we noticed an open tour agency. One of the employees was calling out to us. We think he noticed us looking at his shop with interest.

So, we decided to go in and check out their Cañon del Colca tours. The first tour offered to us by this employee who called himself Viento (but whose real name we later found out was Wayra) was referred to as ¨the Japanese tour¨. It would amount to taking a bus from Arequipa to the cañon, stopping at sites of interest for photo ops, continuing to a hostal (allegedly with private room and bath) where we would spent the night and then returning the next day with more photo stops along the way. This tour was $25 per person.

He also mentioned that they offered a trekking tour through the Cañon which would allow us a more close-up and personal look at the cañon. Of course this was just what we were looking for. He explained the tour would be ¨private¨for just the two of us, would include an English speaking guide (who allegedly spoke English ¨just like me¨ he said), two breakfasts, one lunch, one dinner, snacks, all transportation and accommodation in a bungalow in the Cañon. He showed us pictures and this seemed like just what we wanted. He told us the price for the tour was $60/person. Nevermind that this trekking tour was, for whatever reason, more than twice the cost of the ¨Japanese tour¨, which seemed to offer better facilities. We thought that perhaps it costs more to have a guide that speaks English or that it may cost more to go with a real registered guide. The employee, Viento (Wayra), was also trying to sell us a flight over the Nasca lines when we arrived there (which was to be 3 days later).

We told the guy we would step outside the office and discuss it amongst ourselves and decide what we wanted to do. We had not ¨shopped around¨at all because the other tour agencies were closed when we started walking around. After talking about it outside for a bit, we decided to go for the trekking tour. Upon being pressured by the guy to book an airplane flight over the Nasca lines as well, we told him we would see how the cañon trip went first…(good thing we did this because as you will read the Colca Canyon trip was a complete disaster!)

Next, we ran down to the nearest ATM to grab some cash to pay for our trip and Viento (Wayra)  traded us a voucher for our 402 Soles. The name on the sign outside the office was Pachamana, the name on the brochure he showed us was Wayra Explorer and the company name on the voucher was Continental Explorer – make note of these three companies and DO NOT USE THEM! After we left the office we went downtown to book roundtrip flights between Lima & Cusco, Lima & Iquitos and a one way flight from Lima to Guayaqil, Ecuador…

We spent the rest of the day running around doing business and preparing ourselves for the 5:30 a.m. pick-up for the cañon trek the next morning. Part of this preparation involved buying some of our own snacks. We always have our own snacks for all hikes and travelling. We also had to pack all of the essentials from our big travel packs into our day packs.

The next morning (May 1st) we awoke at about 4:30am and had a light breakfast of yogurt and cereal that we purchased from a nearby store the night before. An hour later, our guide showed up at the door to La Casa with a taxi. Within seconds, we knew we were in for an ¨adventure¨. ¨I am guide for to make trekking at the cañon. You speak Espanish.¨ hmmmm… wasn´t this supposed to be an ¨English-speaking¨ guide? Oh, he is probably just nervous but when he calms down a little his English will improve. Besides, Mike knows some Spanish anyway.

Next we found ourselves on the way to the public bus station. Wasn´t this supposed to be a ¨private¨ tour – as in us and our guide in a car? Well, we arrived at the public bus station about 45 minutes before our 6 hour public bus was to depart for Cabañaconde. We asked our guide about breakfast since our voucher said we would be provided with two breakfasts.  The guide said the breakfast for this day was not included.  Good thing we ate something before we left the hostel! The public bus ride was 1 hour pavement and 5 hours dirt road.  The bus seemed to have no shock absorbers and during the horrendous 5 hours on the un-paved road people were flying off their seats only to slam back down seconds later pulverizing their vertebrae. The next omen came when our guide  offered us each a small package containing 8 soda crackers. Was this the breakfast? A snack?  Hmmm…should we be nervous about the kind of food were we going to be provided with on the trek?  (Answer= yes….read on).

After 6 hours on the bus, we finally arrived in the nice little town of Cabañaconde perched near the edge of the cañon. Our guide walked to a restaurant just 5 meters away from the bus stop and inquired about the ¨almuerzo menu¨ (if there was a lunch menu and how much it cost). Well, they did have one and it cost 3 soles ($1) per person. We were suprised our guide didn´t already know this information. This suggested he wasn´t familiar with the people or the town that all the guide books say is the starting point for the trek into Colca Canyon.  We were also beginning to wonder… if we were taking public transportation, our lunch was $1, our snacks were going to be packages of soda crackers (which could cost no more than 20 US cents) and we were to stay in something like a camping hut, where was our $120 going? 

About 45 minutes later, after our guide had purchased some ¨meat¨ from the local butcher, we were on our way. We started by walking through the small town, to the outskirts, down the unpaved road we rode in on and to the trail head. At the trail head, we showed the park ranger our 35 sole ($11) national park entrance tickets which were not included.  (It turns out that the agency lied to us about how much the park entrance tickets would cost.) The switchback trails into the cañon provided us with amazing views of pueblos surrounded by agricultural terracing carved into the cañonside and the river far, far, below. A couple of times along the way, we stopped for breaks to drink tiny cups of juice provided by our guide. We were also offered another pack of 8 saltine crackers.

We have to admit the surroundings were beautiful and the rocky, scree-covered trail was challenging enough to keep things interesting. Just so that we are not totally negative about our trip into Colca Canyon, here is a photo that illustrates the beauty of this place:

We actually had a couple of near falls when our feet almost slipped out from under us. The guide didn´t seem the least bit concerned.  However, it would not have mattered if he did express his concern because we (especially Michele) couldn´t understand anything he was saying. 

After crossing the river at the bottom of the cañon 2.5 hours into what was scheduled to be a 5 hour hike, our guide started asking some of the local villagers about something. While Mike knows some Spanish, his comprehension wasn´t good enough to catch everything but it was evident our guide was asking for directions. What´s wrong with this picture? A guide asking for directions??? After taking a couple of wrong turns around a village and asking no less than three people, our guide explained to Mike, in Spanish, that… the Oasis (Village of Sangalle), our destination for the night, was still very far away. He explained that in order to gain some time we were going to hike up the side of the cañon and then descend to the oasis (as opposed to just staying on our present path along the river). This didn´t seem to make sense to us but what did we know? 

More than 5 hours later and just as the sun was setting we arrived at the ¨Oasis¨. It was incredibly green with beautiful waterfalls nearby. Unfortunately, we weren´t able to appreciate much of this beauty since the sun was going down. We followed our guide into a ¨camp¨ and he spoke with someone who was apparently an employee. It was again clear that he had never interacted with this person before. Could this be his first time as a guide? Hmmm….what if he wasn´t even a guide?  (Guess what?! Yep, that´s right. We later learned from him that he was not a guide; just some guy the agency hired for our two day trek.) 

So the remaining plan was that we would have dinner in about 1 hour (7 p.m.), go to bed, and then wake up at 2:30am.  We were told we had to get up at this time to begin our 5 hour trek back up the cañon wall we had just descended in order to catch the 8:15am bus to the Cruz del Condor (a lookout point where huge condors can be seen).  A few minutes later we discovered there was no electricity in our hut. Maybe we shouldn´t have expected this but clearly all of the villages in the cañon had electricity because there were powerlines strung across the cañon. Mike expressed our concern about the way the tour was going to the guide. Mike explained, in Spanish, that everyone involved was very lucky that we  brought our own headlamps because no one from the tour agency ever told us we would need them. The agent at Pachamama Explorer/Wayra Explorer/Continental Explorer told us all we needed to bring was walking shoes.

We waited in the dark in our hut until 8:00pm, 1 hour later than our guide said the dinner would be ready.  Eventually, he came to our hut and led us to a small table with a candle where we would be eating.  He brought the dinner out and it smelled horrid!  The meat was clearly rotten or some type of organ meat or a combination of both.  We didn´t even care that he had purchased only enough meat for a small child because we were not going to eat any. The meat had things in it that looked like round puss sacks and there was also something in it that resembled a heart valve. YUK! In addition to our rancid meat we also got the equivalent of half a carrot and one potato.

Later, we tried to talk to our guide about a way from us to get back to Arequipa as soon as possible. Maybe an earlier bus? Maybe skip the condor viewing? Maybe skip the lunch on the way back? According to him, there was no way we could get back before 4:30 p.m. In fact, he said there were only two buses back — one at 8:15am and one at 9:00am. This made us wonder about the breakfast we were supposed to have at Cabañaconde because the hike was scheduled to last until 8:00 and the bus was supposed to leave at 8:15. We confirmed with the guide that we would only have 15 minutes for breakfast.

The next morning, Mike got up at 2:40am and woke up Michele. Hmmm…Where was our guide? Weren´t we supposed to be leaving in 20 minutes? He was supposed to wake us up at 2:30am. At about 2:50am our guide came to collect us to have a couple of pieces of bread before departing for our 5 hour hike. Yes, it was definitely going to take 5 hours, he said. We actually didn´t start hiking until about 3:20am and we were really stressed about this because we were afraid we would miss the bus and/or breakfast.  Turns out we finished in less than 2.5 hours at 5:40am!!! Five hours, yea right! Now what we were going to do until the bus left at 8:15am?

While waiting in the chilly morning air before the breakfast restaurant opened, Mike asked ¨¿Tu primera vez?¨ (your first time?) to which the guide answered yes, it was his first time as a guide. He also explained that although he had done the trek before he had not done it IN THE PAST FOUR YEARS!!!! Wow!

At 6:00am, we had another 3 soles ($1) per person meal while our guide went to check on the bus tickets. Well, how surprising, he didn´t know there was a 6:30am bus out of town!!! (Remember that the guide told us the bus left at 8:15am.) Gawd…this guy really didn´t know anything.  

At 6:30a we took a 45 minute bus ride to the Cruz del Condor.  This is a place where people go to take pictures of the huge Andean condors. Mike was actually more interested in finding some lizards catching morning UV rays. We admit that the lizards and the condors were awesome.

After a few more incidents with our guide (that we would explain if this blog wasn´t so long already), we finally arrived back at the tour agency in Arequipa at 4:30 p.m. We had paid for bus tickets from Arequipa to Nazca before we left and were there to pick them up from this agency. A guy there said they wouldn´t be ready until 7 p.m. ¨NO WAY!!¨ Michele yelled. ¨WE NEED THEM NOW!!¨ We certainly weren´t going to wait until 7:00 p.m. (just 90 minutes before the bus was to depart) only to find out there was something wrong with the tickets. (This was one of several mistakes we made while in Delhi, India.)

Mike waited while one of the employees went looking in search of the tickets (so, no, they weren´t there in the office). Michele went back to our hostel to get the receipts for our Lan Peru tickets. Yes, we also had to pick those up before leaving on the bus. Busy, busy, busy.

A few minutes later, an employee brought the bus tickets. Surprisingly, everything seemed in order with the tickets. Having satisfactorily delivered the tickets to Mike, this same employee asked him, in Spanish, if we would like to book a flight over the Nazca lines when we got to Nazca the next morning. Mike told him, ¨No. porque no estamos contentos con el tour del Cañon.¨(No, because we weren´t happy with the trek.) He seemed to express serious surprise and concern and a second employee asked Mike to write down what had gone wrong. In the meantime, our guide was still in the office and as Mike began listing all of the problems, he was looking over Mike´s shoulder.

A few minutes later, Mike still felt him looking over his shoulder and turned to look back. Well, it was Michele now who wanted to know what Mike was doing. Mike explained what was happening.  None of the four employees in the office nor the guide could speak English so Michele thought it was a waste of time to write down all our complaints (which of course we were doing in English). After some yelling, we walked out. 

That night we took a taxi to the bus station and caught the 8:30pm overnight bus to Nazca.  More on this in the next blog…

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 7th, 2006 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Category #28: Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.