Afterward, we went to a Museum which houses an Incan ice mummy. Similar to the mummies we saw in Salta, this one, from a scientific point of view, is even better preserved. When they did tests on the mummy, they could still find traces of blood, as well as remnants of the girl´s last meal in her stomach. The only problem with the tour was an annoying little kid who screamed for his mom the whole time, who seemed oblivious to how annoying this was for the rest of the people in the tour group.
The next day, we started our three day trek through the Colca Canyon, the second deepest Canyon in the world, as measured compared to the height of the peeks surrounding it. It is over twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The deepest canyon in the world is about a day´s drive further from Arquipa and also in Peru. To Evelyn´s chagrin, I chose the slightly harder but less visited route. On the first day, we drove to the starting point, stopping at the Cruz del Condor to look for Condors. Unfortunately, we weren´t luck enough to see any.
After lunch, we walked to the bottom and saw some Geysers along with the stark terrain one would expect in a deep Canyon. The second day, we walked up and down through the Canyon, and spent the afternoon relaxing and swimming in an Oasis town at the bottom of the Canyon. The last day, we ascended over 1200m in he three hour morning climb before heading back.
Like in Iguazu, we were followed around by a dog in the Colca cannon. Like the other dog, this one did not once beg for food, or even for water. But while the other dog only followed us for an hour, this one followed us for the whole three day trek! It was so cute. We wish we could have brought it home with us.
We caught an overnight bus the same day to Huacachina. However, we had rented trekking poles, and the rental place had closed by the time we got to Arquipa, so Evelyn couldn´t get her license back. Good thing we´re moving, so she can get a replacement easily anyway.
Haucachina was awesome. It is a tiny resort town surrounded by massive sand dunes. Supposedly, the largest sand dune int he world is in the vicinity, but I don´t see how that can be a permanent honour. Even after being to Israel and Northern Egypt, I have never seen anything like these dunes. Perhaps the best part about them was riding a dune buggy through them. We had a crazy driver who would speed up and down them. It was like being on a roller coaster for two hours. The scariest part was when my seatbelt snapped going over a ridge :-). We also went sanboarding down the dunes on our stomachs, which was alot of fun, but not nearly as scary as the ride to get there.
We spent the last two days in Paracas. The highlight of the city was the tour of the Islas Bastilles, known as ´the poor man´s galapagos´. We saw thousands of see birds, some at a density of 23 birds per square meter.
We also saw lots of sea lions and starfish, and were lucky enough to see a school(?) of dolphins.
Moreover, we saw a freshly born sea lion pup, which had already died. There were vultures eating the placenta and making moves for the baby, which was still being protected by the mother. The second highlight was the seafood. For about $3.50, we got a plate piled with so much fresh seafood that it couldn´t be eaten comfortably (yet I somehow managed to finish anyway).
In the afternoon, we toured the deserty national park Paracas. The highlights for me were seeing the colourful fishing boats, the steep ocean side cliffs, and one red sand beach bordered by the green seawater on one side and yellow sand cliffs on the other.
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