Someone Keeps Moving My Chair: Getting High With Gran in Peru

4910 meters above sea level to be precise.

Highest point on the tour

Our Colca Canyon experience started and finished with very dodgy and excruciatingly long bus rides, but the scenery was fantastic. On the first day we passed over our highest point for the whole tour, at 4910 meters, the air was pretty thin, but none of us were feeling too bad. Breathing at altitude is a funny thing. You get puffed so easily but recover just as quick, it just makes you feel like you've spent the last two months of your life drinking too much beer and doing no exercise, funny that.

We got to the canyon on the next day and I was excited to see some Condors gliding around. The day went passed at a few different lookout points and no Condors appeared. The guide said that the morning was too cold and not windy enough for the enormous birds, because they don't like to flap their wings. On the way back, and having not seen any Condors, the bus stopped suddenly on the side of the road and all the keen photographers jumped out of the bus. The bird was gliding around the canyon in its graceful style. I didn't get any photos because we were too far away for my camera, and I don't think any photo even from the best camera would have done it justice. I love the nature of their flight, with hardly any movement of their 3 meter wings, they use the wind currents to gain height. It reminds me of paragliding. They look so peaceful in the air, until you remember that they are a scavenging bird and are probably circling around a half dead sheep somewhere.

Colca Canyon at its shallowest

The rock tower I built, 13 rocks in total

Puno was our next stop, mostly as a base for the trip out to Lake Titicaca. First stop was on the floating islands, where small groups of about six families live on a reed island that they have built. I wasn't entirely sold on the floating islands. It was very touristy, and didn't feel at all authentic. I asked my guide out of the 80 floating islands that are on the lake, how many are this touristy and how many live life the same way as their ancestors did. He told me that most of them are like this. The way that people were walking around the island, which is smaller than a school footy oval and staring at the people, it was just set up like a zoo and that didn't feel good. The trip was saved by a few little kids who were excited to receive a small koala teddy. Steph and I were engaged in a game which involved throwing the teddy to someone and shouting 'koala koala!'

Koala Koala!

When I stood up, it became apparent that I had been sitting in bird shit

Handstands are kinda becoming a thing

Later in the day we went to meet our homestay family. This was a much more fulfilling experience. We spent the afternoon ploughing fields, sifting dirt, playing futbol, and preparing vegetables. The hearty pasta and soup was just what I needed, even if there was no beer to wash it down. We dressed up in traditional clothing and participated in all the day to day activities of a Peruvian farming family, and it was a great experience.

Mr Plow that's my name, that name again is Mr Plow

Our host family father, Calixto with his Aussie hat

The traditional clothing: hat and beanie, poncho, footy socks and thongs

The whole fam

Tomorrow is a bus trip to Cuzco, where we will launch into the Inca Trek!

Due to the number of devices for taking photos having quadrupled, I have a lot more photos. So if you don't want to view all of the general tomfoolery that we are all partaking in then look away now...