Winding Up

While Judith and I were at the lookout and then at Dante's school, and Ofer was trying to get to the place where Asher last was, Hannah and Boaz went where Asher planned to go: the bottom of Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world, an enormous ravine that widens out into a valley, whose walls, wherever they're not too steep, are terraced for agriculture.  

Tourists who have enough time hike down into the canyon, stay over night at the Oasis, a kind of resort, with hot springs, and then go on to visit some of the villages in the canyon, which are accessible only by foot or by mule.  You probably feel as if you're in a charmed zone, close to nature, far from noise and pollution, seeing people whose way of life is rooted deep in the past.

But Hannah and Boaz only had a day, so they left at dawn, hiked down, ate lunch at the Oasis, and then hiked up, reaching Cabanaconde again before dark.  

Hannah hired a mule to get back up, but Boaz took on the challenge of coming back on his own and met it with flying colors.  It's a stiff climb in any event, but at that altitude, it's especially hard.

The High Mountain Rescue Unit took us back to Arequipa the next morning.  We left early, so we could reach the condor lookout in time to have a chance of seeing some condors - but there weren't any that day, just about five hundred tourists.

All the way to Cabanaconde from Arequipa, I had been thinking to myself: these are the sights that Asher saw.  All the way back, all I could think was that Asher's body had made the same trip, in the same vehicle.