Cuerpa Failure

I am back in my apartment after a treacherous 3 days which began at midnight on Thursday. I met up with the only other American to take the three hour bus ride to Chivay, which is the drop off point for gringos a plenty to visit Colca Canyon, as well as Cruz del Condor, something about massive condors (I saw a picture, and they are sadly large vultures). Anyway, the three hour bus ride, everyone was sleeping but me. I simply cannot sleep on buses. We get into Chivay, which is obviously dark and dead, as it is 4 in the morning. We take a motorcycle type vehicle with a box on the back for your things and your butt, inhaling the fumes from the exhaust. He drops us off god knows where, and we get a combi, (about the size of a VW van) who promises us10 soles, which is good (for the whole ride, for both of us,right? right!) and later charges us 10 soles each. Bastard. This apparently happens all the time. He drops us off in Corporaque after a 30 minute very bumpy, very dark, very unfamiliar terrain in the town center, just a 2 minute walk from the house we will stay at. Chris, who I traveled with, does this every Friday to meet with the kids. I am still unsure of what he was doing before this Friday, because it was his first English classes with this school. We arrive at the house in time for about an hour nap, woken up with rapid Spanish, bright light and a home made breakfast. I am sick with exhaustion. We eat breakfast, and walk to the school...6 grades, 40 minutes each, of the alphabet. I have never wanted to teach English, and it was confirmed. I feel like I have other things to offer besides my language. By the end of the school day, I could barely stand up, and I hated the alphabet. That day, Chris left in the afternoon, and I was left there to fend for myself with a family who speaks only Spanish, and the indigenous language, Quechua (no idea of the spelling). I did learn that Intiwawa, means children of the sun (I guess it was more of a reminder), but Inti means sun, and wawa means child. Nice, huh? The family has four children, the oldest of two are 14 and9 and get along perfectly. As far asI could tell, there wasn't a single problem amongst the family this weekend except for the fussy one year old who eats dirt and rocks. The two oldest take my mal-adjusted self up the side of a mountain with the most specatular views of ancient, Incan terraced walls, beautiful shades of green, which turned out to be small fortressed plots of farm land (explanation soon). At the top, there was an Incan cemetary, which had piles of human remains inside, a few recognizable skulls, two of which were in the windows of this little building. Kind of creepy, but so old, it is hard to believe it is still there. The children, Christian and Antonella told me that the Spanish had looted all the good stuff, and left the bones. Our hike was a few hour loop, in which I stopped a lot to avoid tripping over there puppy, or to take pictures. At the bottom of the mountainside, was more ruins, the bare bones of homes. All without roofs. My guess is that they were all thatched roofs, which many of the homes in Corporaque have now. After a few hours of playing with the children at their school the next day, in which Chewonki would be proud to know that I introduced a few games I learned there. They loved them, even if they were not introduced in the clearest way. They had fun, and I laughed at the irony of coming all the way to Peru only to teach them games. I cant remember why I have come, but just the same, I am enjoying the experience. After playing, we ate lunch with the family, and walked to the river at the bottom of the valley, an incredibly steep decline. I knew coming up would be hell. I paused at one of the terraces to look at the wheat bending in the wind, and put my hands on the top of the rock wall, only to jump back in pain. I had put my hand firmly on a cactus, and leaned in with my stomach. I pulled away, looked at my hand, and had 10 1 inch spikes sticking out of my palm and fingers. My hand still hurts! That was a great point of humor in the trip down. Later everyone was warning me of the cacti ahead so I wouldn't injure mzself. After a few hours in the hot waters, or hot springs, right next to the river, we all got out, changed under towels in the brisk cool air, and began our ascent. This included the entire family, with the mother carrying the plump infant on her back, an incredible feat. Christian was running up ahead of everyone, and once we caught up huffing and puffing, he was relaxing in the grass with his puppy. Show off. The last third of the ascent nearly killed me. Altitude sickness set in, I think. My hands turned white and cold, I was flushed, out of breath, overwhelmingly tired. I still feel like crap two days later. For a point of reference, for the last week, I have been stazing at 2325 m, or 7000 ft. Coporaque is 3957ft,or 12985 ft. I had no idea. Apparently altitude sickness can set in days later. I am back in Arequipa, with a stomach ache, back ache, switching from sweating to chills. It is entirely possible that I am simply dehydrated. This week, I get to sleep in a bed. Last week I slept on little kid mats, worse than at Chewonki. Last night was a terrible nights sleep, but I stayed in bed for at least 12 hours, and have been sleeping on and off all day today. The backache could be attributed to the insanely bumpy ride back to Chivay to catch the bus home in the back of a pick up truck with a bunch of other people, with nothing to hold onto. Ow. When we got to Chivay, we were surprised to hear that the bus tickets were sold out. The next bus won't be until 1am. This was very bad news, especially for me, because I could barely make it to the bus station. All this while I wasn' t sure I could even take this bus because I felt sick, but managed to make it anyway. The only possibility of getting home at a reasonable hour would be to take a taxi for 200 soles...50 bucks. Ouch. No friggen way. It is a three hour ride, and I guess that would cover his costs back to Chivay, but we just could't do it. After we stood around in disbelief for a few minutes, a taxi driver came abruptly over to us, speaking to the male Peruvian we were with, to tell us he could get us on a bus right now for a little more than we would have payed for the 1am. 20 soles, 5 bucks. Much better. we hop in his taxi, and I am thinking, there are no other towns, where the hell is he taking us? He drives for a few minutes with a Peruvian man scrunched in the back with our belongings, and pulls up behind a bus with its four ways on! The taxi driver had called the bus driver to tell him he had 5 passengers, and he pulled over to wait for us. What are the chances? I got on the bus, and it was FULL of tourists from all over the Northern Hemisphere. My god. We made it.