An Awesome Journey to Lake Titicaca

So the other day, we're eating lunch in Chivay, in the Colcha Canyon, and a woman noticed that Brad was wearing a Big Sur Marathon shirt, and she said she ran it several years ago. We struck up conversation, and lo and behold, she lives in Thousand Oaks.

Amazing that you can be on the Edge of Nowhere and run into people from your own city.

Anyway, this morning we were up early and traveled deep into the Colcha Canyon (said to be twice the depth of the Grand Canyon), home of massive condors. This picture doesn't truly capture the majesty of the condor. As they swept in front of us, their size was simply amazing.

At lunch, we joined our new Thousand Oaks friends, Lucinda and Scott, for lunch on the main square of Chivay, and enjoyed great conversation, good food, and decent bottle of Peruvian wine.

After lingering a little too long over lunch, we had to rush to catch a new minivan bound for Puno, on Lake Titicaca. It was a 6-hour drive through the mountains, and we're now ensconced in our hotel at about 13,000 feet.

Since we arrived after dark, all we've seen are the twinkling lights of the city, but we're excited to see it in all its glory during the coming days.

On Tuesday, we are heading to a couple of islands, and will stay the night with a local family on one of them. Since there's no electricity or running water where we're going, we highly doubt they have wi-fi out there, so it may be a couple of days until we can post again.


Until then, here are a couple of photos from the day.

Yes, flamingos in the high Andes.

 

What do you call a cross between a llama and an alpaca. A llamaca?

Leaving the Colcha Canyon.