Do you realise we're higher than Mont Blanc," said Lizzie, my effervescent guide, as we sat drinking a cup of muña tea outside a dusty roadside café high on the Altiplano in southern Peru. "Really?" I gasped as the bracing Andean wind and blinding tr
opical sun made stars dance before my eyes. Lizzie had sensed I was suffering from the altitude, and the oregano-scented tea was the latest in an arsenal of remedies she'd tried on me since leaving Arequipa a couple of hours earlier.
She'd started by offering me the standard tonic of coca leaves wrapped around small lumps of quinoa ash. These have a delicate liquorice flavour and leave your mouth pleasantly numb. The knack is to lodge the bundle into one side of your mouth and leave it there to slowly release the altitude-fighting alkaloids, just as the Incas did centuries ago. There are ancient statuettes in the local museums with bulges on one side of their cheeks, depicting this same practice.
Although I knew that coca leaves were perfectly legal here and, remarkably, were still imported by the US as a flavouring for Coca-Cola, I couldn't help feeling guilty and was happier with Lizzie's next remedy of flower water sprinkled over a handkerchief. When this failed, she delved into her handbag and pulled out a small bottle of pure alcohol. "Rub this on your hands and inhale deeply," she told me and immediately an oxygenated whoosh spread through my veins. This was clearly the altitude sickness remedy par excellence but by the end of the journey I felt like a gaseous alcoholic and wished I'd stuck with the coca leaf.
Altitude sickness is a serious consideration when you're visiting the Peruvian Andes and Arequipa, Peru's instantly likeable second city, is the ideal place to acclimatise for a few days before attempting the dizzying heights of the Altiplano. At 2,300 metres, it enjoys a wonderful spring-like climate and its proximity to the Atacama desert ensures 360 days of sunshine.
The city is cradled in a spectacular amphitheatre of snow-capped volcanoes, including the perfectly conical Misti, which towers above the suburbs like Mount Doom. Life on the seismic edge has given Arequipa's citizens a fiercely self-reliant spirit and the city has been dubbed the Independent Republic of Arequipa by the rest of Peru. Oddly, one of the clearest examples of this individuality can be found in the city's favourite fizzy drink. While the rest of Peru is addicted to Inca Kola, Arequipa proudly drinks its very own Kola Escocesa (Scottish Cola) and for visitors from Scotland this surprising connection always makes for an excellent ice-breaker when the friendly locals strike up conversations in bars and cafés.
Arequipa is also known as la Ciudad Blanca – the White City – after its beautiful colonial centre, a Unesco world heritage site. The ornate baroque buildings are built out of sillar, a local white volcanic stone, and the dazzling facades are softened by lilac-flowered jacaranda trees swaying in the many breezy plazas.
The city's remarkable ecclesiastical monuments offer fascinating glimpses into the fusion of Inca and Spanish culture. On the richly sculpted church facades you'll spot Habsburg coats of arms beside puma gargoyles, angels with parrot wings and nativity scenes featuring llamas. Wander around Santa Catalina Convent and you could be in a delightful Andalucian village, complete with lime-washed cobbled streets and courtyards filled with geraniums. The nuns, many from aristocratic Spanish families, were accustomed to living the high life and their spacious rooms – complete with en suite kitchens and servants' quarters – have been left pretty much unchanged since the 17th century. The nuns these days live in more modest quarters and, in common with the sisters at nearby Santa Theresa, rustle up some of the best cakes and lunchtime snacks in Arequipa. Don't miss their delicately spiced meat pasties, the best you'll find anywhere outside Cornwall.
Back on the Altiplano, our breathless journey from Arequipa to the Colca Canyon was turning into quite a wildlife safari. "Look, an Andean fox," Lizzie pointed, as a bushy tailed ginger streak darted between the clumps of golden puna grass. "They bring good luck," she said. I was glad to hear this as I'd been keeping a wary eye on Mt Ubinas, Peru's most active volcano, which was puffing out huge, Paddington Bear-shaped clouds of steam on the not-too- distant horizon.
The menacingly beautiful volcanic backdrops and clear mountain air are ideal for budding landscape and wildlife photographers and the plateau is one of the best places in Peru to spot vicuñas, the elegant wild cousins of the llama. Flushed with our fox's luck, we soon encountered herds of these golden-fleeced camelids grazing obligingly by the road.
Stopping the car, I tiptoed behind tussocks of puna grass but as soon as I raised my camera and framed the perfect composition, a sierra finch took fright and the vicuñas cantered off, consigning my prize-winning photo to a fuzzy blur of golden backsides.
Later on, as the road coiled round the plunging rim of an extinct caldera, the eagle-eyed Lizzie spotted a pair of chinchillas basking in the sunshine on some nearby rocks. These were far more accommodating models and, with cute expressions of wide-eyed curiosity, they raised themselves on their hind feet and stared straight at the camera.
The Colca Canyon is synonymous with condors and, as the road begins its tortuous descent into Chivay, the easy-going regional capital, a giant outcrop of rose-coloured rock resembling a hunched condor stands guard over the mouth of the canyon. From this point on, the harsh landscape of the Altiplano softens and you enter a fertile region of cascading waterfalls, eucalyptus groves and fields of silver and blue lupins.
Dusty adobe brick villages cluster around squat earthquake-proof colonial churches while ancient pre-Inca terraces coil gracefully around the hills filled with crops of speckled pink corn and prickly pears covered in fluffy cochineal larvae.
Beyond Chivay, the road disappears into a bumpy dirt track where the views of the foaming kingfisher-blue Colca River set against the saffron and purple cliffs of the canyon – the second deepest in the world – are staggering.
Beyond a humpback bridge straight out of The Three Billy Goats Gruff we reached the Colca Lodge, our final destination, which itself has more than a fairy-tale feel about it. A series of thatched Hansel and Gretel-style cottages meander through fields of bright blue flax while llamas wander around grazing on marigold flowers. Down by the river, volcanic fumaroles pour steaming water into the rapids, which rise in wraith-like wisps above the boulders. The lodge has diverted the mineral-rich water from one of these fumaroles into a series of thermal pools. So, after our long day's drive I ordered a pisco sour, Peru's frothy national cocktail, and jumped into the fizzing water to unwind and watch the crystal clear southern hemisphere constellations appear after the brief tropical sunset.
To see Colca's famous condors rising on the thermals, you'll need to leave at around 7am. The lodge serves delicious hot tamales (steamed corn dumplings) from 5:30am onwards to warm you in the icy Andean dawn. The condors live in family groups on cliffside eyries and you're guaranteed a spectacular display at various miradors along the canyon. The most famous vantage point is the Cruz de Condor, which has a fairground-like atmosphere, thanks to crowds of excited tourists oohing and aahing at the giant vultures circling overhead like pterodactyls.
Further along the road at Tapay, the crowds disappear and you can fully appreciate the timeless majesty of the gliding condors set against Colca's dramatic precipices. It takes them half an hour to rise high enough to soar over the mountains and their scavenging forays often take them as far as the Pacific Ocean – a 250km round trip.
Their Pacific journey takes them over the sacred Inca mountain Ampato, where Arequipa's most famous resident, Juanita the 500-year-old ice maiden, was found in 1995. Her discovery caused an archaeological sensation and quickly catapulted her into the same iconic ranks as Tutankhamen and the Terracotta Army.
Despite having misgivings about the ethics of displaying human remains, let alone child sacrifices, I'd been to see her in Arequipa's Museo Santuarios Andinos. In a hushed, darkened room, her tiny body sits hunched up in a small case, her beautiful, ghostly face peering impassively out of the frost-covered glass. It's an incredibly moving sight and Juanita seems to encapsulate all the dark mysteries of long-vanished cultures.
Here in the Colca valley, staring up at the condors disappearing behind the snow-covered peaks, the most remote source of the Amazon, I could fully understand why these mountains are, to this day, considered sacred. Thinking back to Juanita, I hoped that one day she might be returned to her breathtaking final resting place. SM
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