The Weekend of June 15: The Thermal Springs of Yura

This weekend we visited Yura, about an hour's public bus ride  outside of Arequipa and stayed overnight in the hotel in town.  Yura is a very old, extremely quiet highlands town noted for its cement factory and thermal (not hot) springs.  It is set right at the base of desert mountains with one main street.  The hotel we stayed in was the fanciest we have been in,        but was in the midst of renovations, which unfortunately did not seem to include hooking up the electricity to the lights in our room.         The first sign says "Take care of me because I give you air (Loosely translated) and the second says "My leaves give you air."  Quite ecologically-minded!  But David rescued the night by filching a pole lamp from the common room and bringing it to our room because, with no windows, and only an opaque front door, we would have been quite in the dark!  On Saturday we hiked up and and over; up and over the mountains to the waterfalls.  The walk was great but the waterfalls was weird; black water sort of spitting from high up in the rocks. Maybe during the rainy season it flows stronger.   We went back to our room and promptly fell asleep, having walked a little over 10 miles!  However, the last two kilometers were the funniest because a small bus full of kids and some parents stopped to pick us up and everyone was so jolly and kept laughing and shouting "Hello", even when the bus went way too quickly around the corner and David fell and squished one of the teens!  The next day we soaked in the rather cool (76 degrees) thermal pools which did make us feel great! and then walked down to the little plaza and found a man training his cocks to fight!  What next!  Luckily, both lived to train another day.   On the way back we came across this poor excuse for a llama...with purple tights!    Believe it or not, these flowers, planted on a border at the hotel are quite real!       The town has several indoor thermal pools, the hotel has two and then there is a public pool.  And now I am all caught up with our travels!!!!