Canyons, Condors and *cough* Cultural Dance Shows

Well Jarrod it’s just as well this blog is not serving as Proof Of Life, because it’s been MANY weeks since my last entry. So much to catch you up on! When I last wrote it was with a stomach full of frog juice and guinea pig in Arequipa. With digestive juices attacking those, what better to do really, than jump onto a bus for a 5 hour trip to the next town?

Will we be able to use the toilet AND purchase reasonably priced knitwear in the mountains? Yes?

Time to head to Chivay…where we’ll have our first real taste of altitude, and it’s grim little sidekick–Altitude Sickness. It might help you to imagine it thus: Altitude is all “hey, you’re up high, how are these for amaaaazing views? Spectacular, right? Go on, take some photos! Enjoy!” but Altitude Sickness is more “Screw you, buddy. Beauty comes at a price. Here’s a savage headache. Pow! And some crippling nausea and vomiting. Ha! Have some palpitations and blood tinged sputum to boot!”

The Upside of Altitude

Alarmingly, at least 2/3 of the group seem to have had altitude sickness tablets prescribed for them by their doctors and everyone on the bus is comparing notes about doses, side effects, when they started taking them and when they plan to stop. I panic a little because my doctor didn’t prescribe me anything. I can only assume that in addition to my other Superpowers Of Limited Use (1. ability to guess the weight of my carry on luggage to within 100g, AND 2. uncanny ability to predict the number of likes a Facebook status is going to receive), he foresaw that I’d also have the Superpower of being Completely Impervious to Altitude Sickness. He’s part GP, part Professor X.

Our delightful local guide Lis talks us through the benefits of Coca leaves – a herbal option that can help alleviate or prevent altitude sickness. Seeing as I don’t have any meds with me, I dutifully buy a bag, roll up four leaves with a bit of catalyst stone, pop the leafy bundle in my mouth and start sucking. The leaves a) make your mouth go quite numb, and b) make you resemble somebody who has just had their wisdom teeth removed and has a big residual pocket of swelling in their lower jaw. Who wants that in all their photos?? I’m irritated by them within 20mins, spit them out, and the packet I bought just sits in my daypack, making it smell like a health food store for the remainder of the trip…

On the way to Chivay we stop in a local nature reserve for a little Alpaca and Llama-Rama. Fashion side note: pink and red tessellated earrings are going to be HUGE next spring/summer.

I think they call this ‘presenting?’

Next morning we are up bright and early. Alright, we’re up surly and early, to depart the hotel at 6am. Destination: Colca Canyon for some Condor spotting. It’s birdwatching for the big boys; no binoculars or hiding in shrubbery wearing khaki vests required. We’re advised to proceed with caution as the canyon is roughly 3400m deep. If you stumble over the edge it’s safe to say there will definitely be a plummet involved… and a little Road Runner style puff of white dust where you land.

We’re told by Lis we are going to see two types of Condors–firstly the juveniles, who have brown and black feathers. They look like that till they’re somewhere between 6 and 8. At that point their Condor parents take them aside for a chat and tell them they’re going to start sprouting white feathers in strange places. Okay, maybe the chat doesn’t actually happen, but their feathers do change at that point to black and white and then they’re adults.

Juvies.

All Grown Up

The Condors weigh between 13 and 14kg and have a wing span of about 3m. They live for around 60 to 80 years and Lis tells us that when their partner dies, the other condor commits suicide by flying into the canyon walls at high speed. That gets a “nawwwww” from some of the group but seriously, how do we really know it’s a Shakespearean, tragic/romantic gesture? Seems a little unjust to me that a Condor flying into a wall has people wiping away tears, but when an elderly person drives into a shopfront, all it does is ignite public debate over mandatory driving tests for people over 70…

Anyway, as we walk down to the Condor Lookout, I’m given a gift, Jarrod, in the form of a question from a random American stranger. A veritable GIFT. This American stranger very earnestly, without a trace of irony, asks her friend “can you take a photo of me sitting up on that rock, just looking wistfully out over the canyon?”

I swear. Sometimes this blog practically writes itself.

But maybe I’m being a little mean. Because I know how it is, when you’re just looking wistfully out over a canyon, being all contemplative and deep, and you’ve LEFT YOUR OWN CAMERA JUST SITTING THERE, about 10 metres away and someone picks it up and snaps a perfectly spontaneous photo of you without you being aware of it whatsoever.

#lostinthought #namaste #blessed #sospiritual

So naturally I had to get my own wistful shot.

So Deep It Hurts

I digress though! We hadn’t come to the Canyon to poke fun at poseurs. We came to see Condors and my God, do we see Condors! They are AMAZING, just gliding about above the rock faces and most importantly not committing suicide at all.

Swooping, soaring or just perching on a rock with buddies.

If I’m honest, some of the juveniles need a little coaching, because most of them fly at angles where they just blend into the canyon rock-face. (Note to self: TV show idea – South America’s Next Top Condor where supermodel Tyra Banks teaches the Condors their best angles and how to really make their features “pop”)

Barely Visible Juvie.

But some of them are dead set naturals. And the adults are just outright impressive, especially these guys who I’m quite certain are channeling Batman…

“I’m Michael Keaton Batman. The original and still the best!”

“Christian Bale all the way. I AM the Dark Knight!”

Now, I have one more thing to tell you about from Chivay, Jarrod, and that’s a local dance show that we head to see. I’m going to make a sweeping statement here and say that as a rule, I really, ardently, vehemently dislike local dance shows when I’m traveling. For one, the drinks service stops when the local dance exhibition starts, as does ALL possibility of conversation. Secondly, they always involve pan pipes of some description and one of my Rules To Live By is that no good ever came of pan piping. Thirdly, the show always goes on much longer than you want it to and finally – it ALWAYS culminates in the local dancers pulling tourists out of their chairs to ‘join in the fun’ at the end. Seriously, if I want to witness a middle aged man with limited coordination dancing enthusiastically, I’ll watch the drunk uncle at a wedding gyrating awkwardly to Katy Perry.

Anyhow. This show starts off innocently enough with a dance conveying the courtship of a young couple (awwwwww) and the sowing of the seeds in springtime *not a euphemism. All very sweet.

Skirt swishing and coy flirting… all okay so far…

And then this happens.

Sorry, whaaaat?

That might not be clear so let’s punch in, as they say in the forensic classics–

Ew.

Make it stop.

Suddenly the sweet courtship jig morphs into a frankly disturbing display with balaclava clad man whipping a woman, using a brightly coloured length of rope, as she lies supine on the floor. It’s kind of a festive S&M, set to some mad fluting. We are speechless.

Just a little Flogging Fun

At some point the woman obviously mutters their safety word, because she gets up–hooray! Sadly, our relief is short lived as they merely change places and she takes up the whipping.

I don’t have pictures of this next bit because… well… then she straddles his legs and squats/ crouches down and sort of gyrates/jumps along the length of his body where she finishes with her crotch above his face. AT WHICH POINT HE SITS UP AND WAVES HIS HAND IN FRONT OF HIS NOSE TO CONVEY ‘UGH! LADY, THAT SMELLS TERRIBLE.’

I’m motionless. Slack jawed. Gobsmacked. The question “what the fuuuuu-” dying incomplete on my lips. Our tour guide Jess supplies the answer. Turns out it is a Yellow Fever dance and the whipping is an attempt to bring someone around. Apparently when they swap places and she works her pelvic magic, her “womanly smell” is waking him up.

Seriously. Here I am like a sucker getting injections to guard against Yellow Fever, when all along it’s clearly able to be cured with dance moves you’d normally see from a performer at a Bachelorette Party.

Can you just imagine the ED presentations? Nurse: “It’s Yellow Fever, quick, get Doctor Raunch!” Doctor Raunch: “Jesus, not again. It’s like nobody is even trying to prevent this. Cue music!” *rips off scrubs, revealing rippling torso*

Anyway Jarrod, that about sums up my incredible time in Chivay. It was pensive, majestic, festive then kind of offensive all at once. But that’s just my opinion: Condor spotting and Cultural Dancing, Jarrod, would you go there?