With am unusually later start to the day we left Arequipa at 10.30am and within 1.5 hours of climbing with the coastal desert now in the distant past, we were high up in the Andes with views of cacti and grass amongst the bare grey earth splatterd with boulders.
The mountains ahead shrouded in clouds and the winds bleak, the sun and warmth of the coast was also a distant past. The pictures show Vicuna, the smallest and most beautiful of the South American Camelids and now protected in some areas after being hunted to near extinction.
The climb peaked at just over 4000m and past various landscapes; sometimes predominantly sandstone, others volcanic rock, dry areas and boggy areas with large pools of standing water until we reached a smallish Andean farming and market town called Chivay. It was a Fiesta weekend in Chivay so people were happy and lively. Dressed traditionaly in Andean clothes I found the people colourful in many ways.
We watched traditional dance to the Andean music of flute, drum and guitars over dinner. The dance consists of a colourfly dressed woman and a masked man who take it in turns to beat each other into submission of love from what I could gather. It was a lot of fun and one of the guys from the other Dragoman truck took part. This was even more hilarious as he is about 6ft tall in a local costume dancing with a local 4.5 ft woman. Drawn by the sounds of the brass band a few of us wandered into the main plaza afterwards and a friend and I stopped at a stall for a spontaneous hot toddy, a local fresh fruit drink served hot with a splash of liquer. It was lovely and warming on the drizzly but colourful evening where the locals danced a traditional dance to brass bands at both sides of the Plaza.