Condors

Today we woke up at 5am (yes, me, waking up at 5am…. it happens very rarely, so mark this day on your calendar) to go see the condors at Cruz del Condor in the Colca Canyon near Arequipa.

It was kindof an adventure but not all the good kind.  Mostly it was a lot of driving, a whole bunch of tourists, and a bit of a cliche.  Condors were considered sacred by the Incas and other pre-hispanic cultures of Peru.  They generally represented heaven, or, well, their own interpretation of it.  More like the world above our world where the gods lived.  They’re also the biggest flying birds in the world, with a three-meter wingspan.

Anyways, the whole experience wasn’t terribly fun, because, you see, we’re standing on the edge of a cliff, and then all of a sudden I hear a thud behind me, and turn around and this guy is tumbling down towards me, and comes to a halt about five feet from me, not moving.  Friggin’ scary if you ask me – what if he had run into someone else on the way down?  What if he had hit his head?  What if he was slightly closer to the edge?  What if it was me?  Anyways, turns out he was drunk, and he mostly hurt his shoulder from landing on it hard.  Lucky bastard.