Canta, Obrajillo

This weekend I thought I was going camping - but when the Peruvian guy who was supposed to take us backed out, we decided to go to a little town in the mountains instead. Five of us took a 2.5 hour cab ride to a very small town called Canta - the drive out was so pretty with mountains, rivers, and cacti. It was kind of fun not knowing where exactly we were going. I had never heard of Canta before Friday morning and had no expectations for what we would find there. As soon as we got out of the taxi in Canta a man named Gumer greeted us and said he could show us around. He accompanied us to an even smaller town further down the mountainside called Obrajillo, which is where we ended up staying. We found a pretty nice hostel for only 6 soles per person (about $2) in Obrajillo. After putting our stuff down, Gumer took us on a hike up the mountain. We were at about 2800 meters altitude and it was very hard to breathe! But it was worth it - the walk was so beautiful. I have tons of pictures, it was hard to choose which ones to put on the blog! 

View from our hostel

Peruvian woman with her herd of sheep - before the hike

Partway up - Laurie, Sylvain, me, David, Kalli

In the mountains! It was chilly up there...

View of Canta from our hike

Kalli, me, Sylvain, David, Laurie - enjoying the mountains :)

Sunset in Canta

After eating dinner at a small restaurant in Canta, we went to bed early. It had been a long day of traveling and hiking! We woke up early on Saturday to meet Gumer at 7:30 for a sort of "tour" through the mountains. Two girls and a family also came with us in a big van. We just drove on the one road out of town and made frequent stops to get out, walk around, and take pictures. The whole tour was around 5 hours and costed 20 soles each - totally worth it! We got up to 4500 meters where I was panting and my heart pounding after just a few steps up the mountain - it felt like somebody was sitting on my chest! 

Stepping outside of the hostel at 7:30 am and seeing this - beautiful!

Cows - closest to Wisconsin I've gotten since I've been here.

This adorable little boy who was playing with us on one of our stops

Cascada (waterfall)

Laguna Chunchun (I think)

Lago de los siete colores (Lake of seven colors)... so pretty!

Mountains at 4500 meters

Classic jumping picture... see the snow in the back? Again, I was pretty much in Wisconsin :)

Stopped at a fish farm on the way back down 

After the morning tour we were very hungry so we went to this little outdoor restaurant that was right along a river. There are tons of stray dogs in Canta and Obrajillo - this one was staring at me all of lunch so when I was full I gladly shared my leftovers! 

Restaurant in Obrajillo

After lunch we had to check out of our hostel because the owner was leaving for Lima. Many people traveled this weekend because elections were yesterday (Sunday) and voting is mandatory by law. Everyone has to travel to their birth city to vote so there was a ton of traffic this weekend! After checking out of the hostel, we decided to go horseback riding. I'm allergic to horses but took an allergy pill - although it didn't work 100%. Oh well, it was still a beautiful ride and great experience!

First time horseback riding in years!

The trail went along this river then up the mountainside

In San Miguel

We got off our horses in San Miguel, another small town on the opposite side of Obrajillo. We stopped to take this picture and it started raining really hard so we ran back to our horses and couldn't find the owner that had accompanied us! After waiting around for him for a while in the pouring rain, Gumer told us we should just go back down the mountain and the owner will find us. We rode back down the mountain into Obrajillo and back to the restaurant to warm ourselves up with tea. The owner found us there and we still had to pay, even though he had guaranteed us rain jackets but was nowhere to be found when it started raining! At least we got a discount. 

After the horseback riding we went back to Canta to catch the bus back to Lima. I'm glad we only stayed one night because although it was beautiful, there wasn't much to do in Obrajillo. We took advantage of our short 26 hours there, but it felt nice to get back to Kusi Wasi on Saturday night at 8:30 and finally get into warm and dry clothes. 

I do want to go camping - I think we are planning on doing that this coming weekend! Just need to buy a tent...