Check out time was noon, and we were going to use all the time we had left. Maybe most of it for sleeping, but still, more food, bathes, and relaxing (aka trying to get well).
The sun was hot when, after breakfast, we changed into our suits and robes and walked down to the hot springs. The air was cool, but we used Oma's umbrella for shade.
We watched an alpaca wander around with a rope around its neck on the other side of the river, where the alpaca ranch was. No one seemed to be chasing it, and it kept circling back to the pasture anyway, so it wasn't a grand escape. The first evening here, I had seen them release the alpacas from the pastures in the evening - to a barn, to another pasture, or to roam free, I don't know.
I checked out the "cool" pool at 22'C, and then went back to Oma at the hot one. It occurred to me that these springs didn't smell like sulphur at all - in fact, it is all Peruvian water that all just smells a little like fake, hot butter.
Oma changed by the pools, and I took her robe and wet swimsuit back to the room, so I could change and meet her at the reception (and so she could minimize the number of stairs at altitude).
We checked out and sat in the lounge, waiting for the taxi. At about noon, we left Colca Lodge - a perfect vacation within a vacation. I always recommend doing that, especially if you are bouncing from city to city like we are.
We arrived at the terminal for buses at Chivay (never did see the downtown area of that mountaintop town), picked the one that was leaving in 40 minutes, and ended up with the last two seats in the back of the bus. I was hoping we could sit on the left side, since that had the vicuñas when we drove in, but it looked on the sheet like we were on the right.
I was happy to be wrong when we loaded the 15-person bus and we were on the left. It was about an hour to get over the first set of mountains, an hour of vicuña spotting (my favorite - they were so much closer today than two days ago!) and an hour and a half of getting into the city and fighting traffic. At least this driver didn't go off on dusty roads, just tiny side streets in residential neighborhoods.
We had lost Oma's black coat at some point the previous day, and I thought it was probably on the bus. The info desk was near where our bus dropped off, but not very near, so I dragged our suitcases over rugged cement, accidentally led Oma across a ref light (got lots of honks, but no one ran us over), and made it to the terminal next door before finding the right terminal. The info desk was closed.
We picked a taxi, showed him the hotel, and got into one of the better cars we've driven in. Sadly, it was rush hour and (I learned later) a saint's holiday, so a procession was blocking some streets, even though we didn't see it.
We arrived 45 minutes later (far too long for a 5-mile drive), hungry and tired. The taxi got stopped by a work van parked in the middle of the road, so he walked us the last block to a tiny, cute hotel. Our room was on the third floor - but we were at a lower altitude again, so a little less huffing and puffing (though Oma still doesn't have much energy from this cold she's still fighting).
We were much closer to Plaza de Armes than we thought - just a frogger-type crossing of a busy road (at least it had a crosswalk) and two blocks to the monastery. We ate at Chichas, recommended by our host. Oma's lamb rice was huge! A skillet full of rice with the lamb shank, and her "wellness" mixed tea poured out the bottom. My shrimp stew was good too! The churro I found on the way home was good as well.
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