Travel lessons from a gelateria

I´ve never been great at making choices. Faced with too many possibilities I'm easily overwhelmed into indecision. Like the gelateria in Rome I went to once that prided itself on having 100 flavours of icecream. I was a total wreck- how to choose between so many delicious possibilities?

South America has sometimes felt like that gelateria. Often I find myself faced with so many enticing options that deciding on where to go next can be quite the dilemma. Cuzco was one of the most difficult crossroads as I was forced to finally decide: North vs South, Equatorial sun vs the wilds of Patagonia. In the end, the lure of the southernmost point in the world won out, and I found myself en route to Arequipa, my last stop in Peru where another of South America's '-est' attractions awaited.

Whether it be the biggest, longest, highest, driest, most dangerous (est) etc, everything in South America seems to have an ´-est´ attached to it. In Arequipa, it´s the deepest. The deepest Canyon in the World: Colca Canyon. Such is the size of Colca that looking into it from the top, the whole view (top to bottom) didn't even fit on the screen of my digi camera! After soothing our tired feet in the cooling river at the bottom of the canyon, we arrived in what seemed like a little slice of paradise after a long trek. The little town we came to was surrounded by fertile fields sown with all number of crops and groves of fruit trees. In quaint stone walled paddocks donkeys were mulling over juicy grass as we walked along Inkan canals to the little straw rooved huts in which we would spend the night. Sitting on the grass watching the sun set over the canyon could only have been better with a fresh gin and tonic in hand!

Though idillic in setting, life in the canyon is by no means easy. Alcoholism is high and consequently male machismo often turns to violence, of which wives are usually the primary victims. A stop to the local medical centre brought the problem to life. The centre serves a dozen towns within the canyon, but as access to all of these can only be by foot or donkey, there is nothing speedy about medical treatment. The most distant town takes 1 and a half days to reach by foot, a round trip of 3 days for anyone requiring medical attention.

Prior to the centre having an oven for sterilization, the story was recounted of a woman waiting patiently for sterilized equipment to be returned from hours away, while her severed finger hung from her hand. Risks in childbirth too become a problem when women fail to make the journey to attend regular check ups throughout their pregnancies given the distance and the time out of their duties required to make the appointments, resulting in many preventable deaths of mothers, babies or both. These are some of the poorest people in Peru, but also some of the loveliest. And though medical provisions are vastly lacking, the saving grace is the fertile lands mean that no one here goes hungry and tradition medicines can often be employed to treat some ailments.

So after an educational trek and a lazy afternoon lounging in swimming pools at the canyon's oasis, it was time to walk back up that horribly steep hillside with its four hours of torcherously steep switchbacks-well, if you're a sucker for punishment that is... The smart ones? The smart ones ride a mule! So we saddled up our noble steeds and let them do the work, as their master trotted along behind on foot with unbelievable fitness for his age encouraging his charges along with shouts of mules, mules, vamos! (let's go!) the entire way. I think Juan was more concerned for the welfare of his mules after carrying the guys with their heavier weights and packs, because for him the climb was "no problemo", and even after the 2 hr steady climb he'd barely raised a sweat!

And with that came the end of my time in Peru, where I felt like I got back to Pachamama (mother earth) with some fantastic outdoor experiences and incredibly beautiful natural wonders. But even though I'd decided to leave Peru from Arequipa, I found myself again with that 100-flavours feeling of indecision and as I boarded my bus into Chile, I still hadn't decided where exactly I was going to stop. San Pedro? Arica? La Serena? Valparaiso? Chocolate? Hazlenut? Berry? Lemon? When it comes down to it, you can't really go wrong no matter what you choose. In South American terms, sacrificing one amazing site is only going to be rewarded with another spectacular experience so typical of almost every option available to you on this crazy/beautiful continent, and so you can never lose by deciding on a last minute whim the location of your next journey. All it depends on is time, money, and how many hours at a time you can stand sitting in a bus...

So until next time chicos, keep well and stay tuned for Chile!