There doesn’t seem to be any clear consensus on who can expect to be affected. Young or old, physically active or not, it’s like playing the lottery. One of the side-effects of the pills was erratic tingling in the fingers, which I experienced but Joanne did not. Either way you set up your itinerary, it’s one of the most unforgettable excursions you will make and should not deter you from calling that favorite travel agent or going online.

Heading up into Colca’s high-altitude grasslands, we caught sight of some remarkably graceful vicuna with long enough necks to give any top Vogue model pause — these are a rare breed and not domesticated — which Elfar, our loquacious guide, was quick to point out. We found the occasional brown rabbit spotting to our liking as well.

Anticipating an ultimate height of 16,110 feet on our journey, we chomped on a few coca leaves in the back of the shuttle to stimulate our breathing. (I have to admit, it may have helped my intake of air, but I wish I had brought an air bag for my ill-timed nausea attack.) Most hotels offer the leaves and/or the tea for their guests, and even though it’s the base plant for cocaine cultivation, it does not produce the kind of illicit high of the better known drug. Personally, I found the tea with a sweetener much more to my liking than simply chewing the leaves. Honestly, I don’t know what the coca plant actually did for us — when we reached a number of breathtaking lookout points such as Mirador de los Andes, where narrow gorges and a wealth of age-old agricultural terraces held us rapt, we still had to take some extra breaths for short periods of time.

After arriving at La Casa de Mamayacchi, a charming stone and adobe lodge in the late afternoon, we fell into a much needed slumber (thin air will do it every time), awaking just in the nick of time for a buffet supper in the spacious open-beamed dining room. Elfar convinced me to enjoy some barbecued alpaca, tender and not unlike venison, along with the local soups and vegetable dishes on display. Quinoa is also a big favorite in many of the dishes we tried. As the evening wore on, Elfar gladly held court, and we regaled each other with our tales of travels and tremors. Finally, it was time to retire with an early a.m. wake up call.

We had happily packed our Kindle readers and I dove into The Last Days of the Incas, a surprisingly entertaining history read. How did 200 and some ragtag Spaniards after greed and glory manage to decimate a culture of over three million Indians?

Then, without warning, a quick jolt rocked our beds, followed by another. The whole business was over in a matter of seconds. (Maybe growing up along California’s San Andreas fault lines had slowed my responses — what’s the big deal? — but my Pennsylvania-born companion Joanne was already dressed and out the door.) Minutes later, listening to her account, I found out the young receptionist was a bit shaken, admitting they had experienced another small tremor just that morning. As a smattering of tourists continued to surround her counter, imploring her to tell them when evacuation should be a necessity, the same anxiety was demonstrated by a large resident llama, his nose pressed insistently against the closed glass entry doors. Eventually the hubbub quieted down, bringing the anticipation of condor sighting in the early morning hours along with sleep, even in these surreal-ridden hours.

With a young, mostly silent driver Hubert at the wheel (how could he get a word in edgewise with Elfar bobbing up and down beside him?), we found ourselves in condor land. The giant Andean condors were truly a sight to behold, some boasting a wingspan of up to 11 ½ feet. Such heavy creatures that they are, they cannot lift off from the ground, instead waiting for the proper air currents before gliding off their cliff perches. One pair within close range of our cameras seemed oblivious to our presence, waiting as they have probably done through eternity for the perfect conditions. The canyon itself is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and not the best of spots — though the sheer beauty is overwhelming — for the vertigo-prone visitor. Elfar encouraged us to take a safe walk along the embankments, dodging, not always successfully, the prickly pear cactus along the way.

It was a bit of a dusty trek, and not just from our footfalls. The previous night’s quake had shaken up more than a few boulders around the canyon roads and clouds of debris were visible a half mile down the road where a cluster of cars had come to a stop. As our shuttle approached the scene, a scattering of rocks dotted the path. However, two of our tour companions were late for a bus to Puno, the site of Lake Titicaca, and had to get back to Arequipa before the day was done. Elfar, a bit cavalierly, ordered Hubert, our driver, to plow ahead and we zigzagged ahead of the pack. He was a good driver, but we couldn’t help but feel for a few minutes as unsettled as the landscape. Passing through a cutaway tunnel in the mountain, the headlights reflected a brown fog seeming to envelop us from the recent activity. But soon we were in open air again, free from the obstruction, and our Dutch couple was on their way to Puno and the spells of Titicaca we had yet to imagine.

We gratefully returned to Arequipa to make our own bus arrangements for the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the jaw-dropping village of Ollantaytambo, the Inca capital city of Cusco, and the fabled Machu Picchu — no better way to experience the seismic clash of cultures between the Old World (Spain) and the new (Peru).

Is the strange becoming familiar?

(To be continued…)

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