​Conquering The World
​​​by Tomas Cironis
Yura 2015
I believe there is a reason why the name "Yura" sounds so familiar to "Jurrasic park". Both names come from Mesozoic era and Yura reminds the age of reptiles. Me and Edmundo decided to go there on our last day in Peru, monday 25th of August. Next day our planes were leaving Arequipa.
The night before we spent in Rosa's house at Luize and Julia's good by party. During the night girls decided to join us. I wasn't that much happy because it should be only guys trip, but when came in Edward with his idea of taking his car, so we could be there and back faster, it started to sound like a good idea. But be careful, you're in Perú....
If we would go by Bus I had to get up around 6:30 to make everything in time. But now when we can go by Edward's car, I could get up at 7:40. So much better, right ?
When I woke up at 7:30 I found several messages on my phone. I thought somebody had a funny night so texted me to wake me up (wouldn't be for first time...) but when I started to read text messages I got quite angry. Or maybe I just started to laugh how naive I was. In the message there was written that Edward is feeling sick so he can't go and that Rosa can't woke Julia up so it's just me and Edmundo... It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't more than hour late.
I called Edmundo, we decided to go anyway. He's so great guy about this. So I had one if the fastest breakfest in the history of this galaxy, took my things and
left the house for Combi. But this time around 8:30 is the one of the worst because everybody is taking combi to get to the work. So while I was waiting at the "bus stop", five or six Combies went around completely full so they didn't even bother to stop. After maybe 35mins I decided to go to the Avenida Estados Unidos to catch anothe bus. But it wasn't any better.
After several mins came quite empty bus but was going different way than I needed. But everybody in the bus stop got in so I got in too. Yeaaaa, it took me to the other part of Arequipa... I recognize the Terminal Terreste near so I went there and took Combi that brought me to the bus stop "Alvaréz", maybe 10mins walking from Edmundo's house. I arrived at his place around 10am, completely exhausted... For me it was already big journey just to get here.
Edmundo decided to go anyway so we went for a Bus. It arrived at 10:40 so we were leving Arequipa 2 and half hour late than expected.... No problemo seňor.
It was first time I was in the Bus which cost more than 80 cents. We paid 2 soles for all the way from Arequipa centre to spa near Yura factory. From there it's still atleast 2 hours of walking, we were told by locals.
So we started to walking, just me and Edmundo and nobody else complaining. We walked for 1 and half hour and reached the gardens. They were in the middle of nothing. Sand, rocks and desert everywhere our eyes could reach. And Sun was shining on 110%. It was quite hot over there and suddenly from nowhere gardens with lot of green.
After next few mins of walking we got found few poor houses with mark "food and drinks". It was written there even in german! But no czech... Edmundo asked local lady how far it is and she showed us the way. We go to the Yura Canyon and found first small waterfall. "I hope it's not that, roght ?" I asked because it looked very small to be called waterfall. Edmundo said no and decided to follow the canyon. So we went into the canyon. It was again big difference because there was small river in it and walls were covered by green. And it wasn't so hot in there.
Edmundo had sandals so he could walk in the water without problems. I had to take my shoes of and walked only by feet which doesn't look so hard but there were lot of sharp stones etc. But what you wouldn't do for this waterfall ?
We walked maybe another hour down in the canyon, found another two small waterfalls, many big stones and rocks and met peruvian couple.
It was more and more cold over there without sun and water wasn't exactly warm for swimming. But when we got so far, we're not gonna give it up.
Somewhere in the middle of Canyon we found something like a little oasis. There were lot of trees and plants
everywhere, even at the walls! It was like santuary in the middle of desert. Have you seen Lord of the Rings ? And remeber the Rivendell ? So that's how was it.
We spent there little while to regenerate and then got back to the trip. We still didn't know if there is any other waterfall and if yes, how far it is. We didn't even know how long is the Yura Canyon so we could be walking for hours and didn't have to find anything. And last Bus from the spa was leaving around 6pm, otherwise we would be stuck here in Yura. And you know what does peruvian "around 6pm" means... Last Bus at 4:30pm if you're nice.
And when it started to look worst and worst, I hurt my ankle and edmundo found out he forgot all of his water bottles, we found two quite bigger waterfalls. So this must be it, I guess. Girls told us that it's not anything awesome, and it wasn't rainy season now so we thought that the waterfall just run out of water. It's the black lines on the left in the picture here.
We didn't come here just for that so we decided to continue more deep into the canyon. There was still water everywhere so it has to come from somwhere and we knew that the Yura canyon is the closed one, which means you can get in and out in only one way. That means the water which was there has to get to canyon by cave or waterfall. So we bet on the waterfall and kept going. And guess what, we found it!
Waterfall was hidden by one of the curve from rocks but we heard it for maybe 60 / 70 meters. It was still louder and louder while we were approaching. And when we got there it was so cool view. We had a sun in our back so there were rainbows everywhere! Shame is we weren't able to take a nice picture with them.
Waterfall was maybe 40 meters high and there was big rock in the first part of it, where all they water got crashed and was falling down as a spraid rain. I believe I don't have to say how cold it was there but totally worth it.
We spent there maybe almost hour. We were relaxing, sitting, taking pictures, making videos and so on. Edmundo even went in the cave behind the waterfall. But we got wet very quickly and nobody wants to be ill when your flight is leaving tomorrow.
So we wait for few minutes in the sun to get dry and then decided to go back to catch the bus. It was already something after 3pm and we had more than 2 hours of walking ahead of us and you know how it is with peruvians and their timetable. And we neeeded to catch tha bus.
This time I didn't bother to take my shoes of, I was just jumping from rocks to rocks to get over the small river.And I must admitt that not everytime I was succesfull... I jumped right into the water few times, so when we were leaving the Canyon I had in my shoes more water than in Pacific Ocean. Luckily we went directly into the desert so they got quite dry very soon but during that time I decied to throw them away when we get back to Arequipa and not take them back to CZE.
During our way back we met again the peruvian couple who was there to see the waterfall too. We got back to the desert and decided to go back different way
which we thougt / hoped was shorter than the one we came here. We were also fllowing the only way suitable for cars. Edmundo had an idea to stop the other peruvian couple who was there with us. They came by car as close to the canyon as possible so we thought we could ask them to give us ride atleast back to the spa.
Exactly as Edmundo expected, they showed up in few minutes. We stopped them and even before we asked the guy showed us to get back on his truck that he's gonna take us. That's the other (positive) side of peruvians people, they don't have any problem with helping even the complete strangers.
When we were going away from the canyon and I saw it for last time I was really happy we made it because the waterfall was so cool. I don't understand why so many people said that "it's boring", "not worth it" and so on. I'm thinking many of them didn't even reach the biggest and only Yura waterfall. They stopped somewhere in the middle and never see the great one.
But it doesn't matter, the most important is that we made it! Same like we made all other trips (except the Salar de Uyuni, I know). So I must advice you to visit the Yura waterfall when you're in Arequipa. It is really worth it.
By car it was surprisingly so faster than walking. We got to the highway in 10 minutes maybe. The car guy showed us where is bus stop and that the Bus goes every half an hour so we need to wait.
We thank him and went to the crrosroad to wait for the Bus. It didn't take even half a minute and showed up big working car, something like supply car but full of rocks. The driver asked us where we need to go and when we told him "Arequipa" he just let us in his cabin. That was great because we didn't have to wait for Bus and could get to Arequipa very quickly and catch some combi over there.
Driver was quite cool, he was asking us about everything, where are we from, where we went, what are we doing in Arequipa and so on. Thankfully Edmundo
answered him everything so I didn't have to embarass myself with my basic spanish (like I did everytime in Taxi when I was trying to have a conversation...). We got to Arequipa so quickly, Driver left us near Bus stop so we just cought Bus waiting there and went to the downtown. When we got there we had a lunch because we were sooooo hungry! You know, why would you take lot of food when you're going by car and you should be around 1pm back, right ? ;)
We got back around 5:30pm I think. After the lunch/dinner I went to Edmundo's place to take some my things and then we said good bye to each other and went home for packing our staff.
That was our last trip and last day in Arequipa.
I believe we're going to come back here one day to make the rest of our trips.....