After leaving Arequipa 3 days ago, Elly and I booked a 2 day trek through the Colca Canyon. The bus ride was pretty brtual, 1am departure for a 5 hour trip on dirt roads. By the time we got to the town of Cabanacondor, the altitude was getting to me and I was feeling pretty terrible and ended up staying in town and slept for about 14 hours.

I met up with the group the next morning and we bussed out to Cruz del condor in time to see the amazing condors take their morning flight. The birds were fantastic, as was the canyon itself. I got some great photos of the birds and am really excited to have seen them.

Today I am in Nazca, with Elly and a friend we met during the Colca Canyon trek. We took a bus out to the Nazca lines this morning and saw some of them. And tonight we’re planning a trip to the Nazca Planetarium for a presentation on the history of the lines.

After a late night series of red eye flights with a stop over in El Salvador I made it to the Lima airport to be greeted by my friend Eleanor, complete with a handmade sign bearing my name.

Our day in Lima yesterday was fairly uneventful and didn´t really include much sightseeing. There were a series of strikes planned throughout the country and we were concerned about the possiblilty of not being able to get a taxi into the airport to get to Arequipa this morning because of the strike, so we opted to stay at the fancy hotel next to the airport instead. It was quite expensive, but ater 2.5 weeks of backpacking on Elly´s end and 15 hours of airports on mine, we were both pretty excited to enjoy the luxury of the hotel´s spa and comfy beds.

It sounds like the strikes were fairly uneventful in Lima though, we probably could have risked it and stayed further out but the risk of missing our flight was more important in the long run. In Arequipa so far there has been much more evidence of today´s strike. A lot of shops are closed and there were rocks blocking the streets on our way into town from the Airport. We were able to get a taxi but had to take some back roads to get to our hostel. It was definitely a bit tense for our driver.