11/9/14 Part 2: Journey to Chivay

Again, up early at 0530 for the bus to Chivay/Arequipa for the Colca Canyon and part 2 of the last adventure of Peru 2014. The bus ride was about 4-5hr with stops to significant places on the way. First stop was to see the "Little Lake Titicaca" and flamingos. Unfortunately, the birds were pretty far away but still a pretty area nonetheless. The second stop was to see the rock forest and the most dangerous active volcano in Peru. The rock forest was natural rock formations that were really interesting to look at. The third stop was for some more volcanos at about 5000 meters. The day started the downhill slope from here.
1. Got into Chivay, bought out tourist pass for the Colca Canyon and headed to the booking place. However, after waiting for what seemed like hours... prolly at least an hour, our guide never shows and then they bring us to a hostel that we think isn't ours. Starving and frustrated we hit the plaza for lunch were they tell us they have what we want then they tell us they don't and then we leave and they tell us they do. AKA "I don't want to make that order something else (we leave), WAIT ok yeah we have that, sit down."
2. After lunch we meander around the plaza and decide to rent some bikes and explore the town a bit. We rent some bikes and equipment but find out there is no guide, however, we get a map!! lol we venture out on the bike path and come to find that the trip is mostly uphill. However, the views are amazing and the work out feels good. We get to the first checkpoint and the map is no longer useful. We get lost... and the only path to follow is off-roading downhill. We ask some people along the way and they tell us that we are on the right track so we continue along until we are utterly and completely lost.... and it's getting dark. We backtrack uphill and walk out to the canyon to see if we can find this "lost bridge" we were supposed to take. Luckily, we can see it, but have no clue how to get to it. We finally find this little path that has been destroyed by rainfall (it appears) and/or hasn't been used in ages. We have to walk the bikes down because it is extremely steep and at this point I'm not taking any chances. We walk onto the bridge and are totally silent because the view is spectacular. We are down in the canyon, the river is gorgeous, and the sun is setting. But it's SUPER windy.
3. We stop to take some pictures and my ticket for Colca Canyon tomorrow flies out of my backpack and I watch as it floats through the wind and down into the river.
4. We get across the bridge and find that the only way back up the canyon to the next check point is by stairs... like approximately 4 flights of stairs... with our bikes. FUN!!!!
5. Get to the top and are totally exhausted and it's just about to be very dark, and we are only half way through the bike trip. In the plaza of this town we convince a convoy to take us and our bikes back to Chivay. He finally agrees and we go on our way. We ended up having to pay a bunch more money because we were late getting our bikes back... shockingly.
6. We get back to the hostel and are scolded because apparently we were supposed to meet our guide there, but no one thought about informing us that.

The bright side... got a work out, saw an incredible sunset.