Hey Everyone,

So it's been almost a week since I did my last update and the time has just flown by. The day after my last update we spent the morning at a museum in Arequipa where they house a 500 year old girl who was sacrificed on top of one of the nearby mountains by the Incas.Apparently archeologists have found 14 child sacrifices throughout the Inca Empire with the majority of them found in Peru. According to their belief system, the Mountains were considered Gods, who used volcanic eruptions and earthquakes to express their rage with the people. The Incas thus believed that through sacrifices they could appease the Gods and live prosperously. The mummy they have on display was sacrificed over 500 years ago, but was only found in 1995 when eruptions from a nearby volcano caused the ice to melt, revealing the well preserved body. The girl, who was of upper class society and in perfect physical condition (a prerequisite for Incan child sacrifices) was between 12 and 14 and died of a blow to the head. She was then buried in the ground at the top of the mountain where she more or less remained (at one point she fell over 100 feet from where she was buried) until she was found. Two other child sacrifices were found on the same mountain. Both of the children were around 8 years old when they died. What I find almost as amazing as the sacrifice and preservation of the bodies, is the fact that those children apparently walked all the way from Cusco to the base of the mountain, and then climbed the mountain, which was well over 6000 metres. I found physical activity tough at 4000 metres, let alone 6000--and they were Kids!

After our visit to the museum, we hopped on a bus and headed for Cabanaconde and the Colca Canyon. Now I must say, while the highlight of this portion of the trip was seeing the condors, the actual canyon itself was a bit of a let-down. According to the guide book, the Colca Canyon is the second largest canyon in the world and over two times deeper than the Grand Canyon in the US. Before arriving I was expecting to see majestic 2000 metre drops into a gorgeous river basin at the bottom, or at least something similar. Now I'll admit I'm not totally sure what the definition of a canyon is, but when we got there the "canyon" seemed to be more like a narrow river valley with high sloping hills than anything else.It seemed as if it was the height of the surrounding mountains that gave it its majesty, rather than the sheer drops that characterize the Grand Canyon It was gorgeous, but not all that spectacular and it definitely wasn't as awe-inspiring as I thought it would be, at least for a guy who comes from BC. Either way, it did provide us with some beautiful scenery and our trip to see the Condors was awesome.

Now to start, here's a bit of a background on the Condor. The Condor is, as far as I know, one of the largest birds of prey in the world. According to the local indigenous culture in Ecuador, the Condor was created by Pachakamak and Pachamama (the two creators) to carry messages from the gods to the people. Unfortunately, due to military target practice and other environmentally friendly activities, the condor is now extinct in Ecuador (or at least in the region where I was). After spending a year in the communities though, and hearing about the Condor, it was really neat to finally actually get a chance to see them up close. And wow, are they ever amazing animals. They're so heavy that they can't simply take off from the ground like most smaller birds.So what they do is they ride the thermals up, slowly but surely rising until their high enough to head off to where they need to go. After waiting for about 15 minutes at the site we started to see 2 or 3 condors. Before we new it, the 2 or 3 condors had turned into 8 or 9 and they were rising up, closer and closer to the lookout point at the top of the hill. The climax was when a couple of them flew to what must have been within 10 or 15 feet of where we were standing. It was an awesome sight and definitely the highlight of the Canyon trip.

After we saw the condors we went back to Cabanaconde to do some hiking. Then the next morning we caught a bus back to Arequipa and then on to Lima (24 hours of traveling) where we met up with Juanca. I definitely wish I had some more time to spend in Arequipa, because that part of the trip seemed rushed, but since we only have another 2 weeks in Peru and since there's just so much left to see, we had to move on.

 Now, a little note on our itinerary: For those of you who know a bit about Peruvian geography, you're probably wondering why we went from Ecuador, down to Lima then to Arequipa, back to Lima, and then up north towards Ecuador to Trujillo (our next destination), instead of continuing on from Arequipa to Cusco. So here's the reason. When we arrived in Lima last week, we ran our itinerary by Juanca's family to get some suggestions on how to take advantage of our time in the country. They told us that we had planned way too much time for Arequipa, the Colca Canyon and Trujillo, and that we could easily see all those places and still have 3 days or so left over. So they suggested that we should go to Arequipa and then come back in time for Juanca's arrival from Uganda. Then together, we would go to Juanca's Grandma's place in Carhuaz (9 hours north east of Lima in the mountains). Then we could continue north to Trujillo, return to Lima, and continue on to Cusco. The change itself would give us another 24 hours of busing, but it also meant that we could see Juanca, and another part of the country that apparently had some great hiking and awesome scenery. So we took them up on their offer, and now I'm writing this from Carhuaz.

Right, so back to our second day in Lima. The day itself wasn't too eventful. We arrived in Lima 2 hours late, but luckily so did Juanca's flight, so when they arrived late to pick us up, our bus had just arrived. We then spent most of the day at Juanca's house, with a bit of time in the historical centre in the evening, before catching a night bus to Carhuaz. I realized, however, that in my last update, I didn't really talk about what exactly we did in Lima and what the highlights were. So, without further adieu, and in no particular order here are the top 4 things in Lima:

(1)Churros! For those of you who have been to Disneyland and a few other places where they're sold, you know what I'm talking about. Churros are a type of sweet pastry that's coated in sugar and tastes amazing.In Peru, however, they take churros to a whole other level and put Manjar de Leche, a really sweet milk product (aka Dulce de Leche if you prefer) inside.These things are amazing and are definitely lacking in Canada(

(2)Lucuma is a type of fruit that's grown here and was made solely for yogurt, ice cream and smoothies.When eaten fresh it's not that great of a fruit, but when added to a smoothie, yogurt or ice cream, it's wonderful. I think the Lucuma yogurt is actually the best flavour of yogurt I have ever had.

(3)The Catacombs!Below one of the churches in Lima are a couple levels of catacombs, only a part of which has been excavated to find the remains of 25 000 people. Because the bones are so old, only the femur and the skull (apparently the two strongest bones in the body) remain, but it's still quite an impressive sight. And what makes it more impressive, is that only a portion of the catacombs have actually been excavated, which means the body count could be as high as 60 000 (according to the prediction they gave us). That and they're still using the catacombs for fresh bodies.Just 4 months ago another person was placed down there.

(4)The general colonial architecture.Though not as well maintained/cleaned as the historical centre in Quito, the colonial architecture in Lima is pretty gorgeous.

Alright, well, since arriving in Carhuaz yesterday morning (after yet another night bus?) we got settled into the house, ate some avocado sandwiches with lucuma smoothies (see above) and then rented a taxi to take us around for the day (we wanted to see some places that were definitely out of hiking distance). We ended up visiting a few towns, two gorgeous mountain lakes, and a memorial for the victims of the 1970 avalanche.The avalanche itself was actually caused by an earthquake that broke off a massive chunk of rock from the nearby mountain that then collected snow and dirt on its way down and wiped out an entire town of 30 000 or 40 000 people. Apparently Juanca's dad and grandparents, who are from the area, almost got hit by the avalanche. They missed their bus that day and caught a later one. The one that they were supposed to catch arrived at the town just before the avalanche hit and was buried completely.

Alright, well the last thing I'm going to mention before I sum up this update is a bit about a sustainability project that a lady is running just outside of town.We went for 20 minutes to visit, just before coming here to the internet, and it was one of the coolest sustainability projects I've ever seen. So often sustainability projects are expensive and inefficient (this often being blamed on the lack of technology) but some of the things this woman showed us were great. She has an oven that could reach up to 350 degrees on solar power alone, by angling the mirror towards the sun and stoves that worked in a similar manner, by angling the semi-sphere shaped mirrors so that they directed the sunlight towards the pot where she was cooking. She put a piece of paper on the stove and even with the wind, it started smoking after 3 or 4 seconds caught fire within 10. The projects she had going seemed so simple, cheap ($100 for one of the stoves that has lasted 18 years and still works), and efficient that it's amazing more people aren't using them. Even the solar powered stove and ovens could easily be put to use in Victoria during the summer to cut down dramatically on energy consumption.

So those are the highlights from the past week. In 2 and a half hours we'll be catching another night bus to Trujillo to see the ruins in and around the city before heading to Cusco and the Sacred Valley/Machu Picchu. I'll try to send another update from Trujillo.

Take care and thanks for reading!

Taylor