@Night: Colca Canyon, Peru

The Colca Lodge { web link }, where we stayed during our trip to the Colca Canyon is a beautiful Spa and Resort with expansive grounds and awesome facilities. Located in the middle of no where, it is the perfect place to stay and explore the Colca Canyon. Reaching the Colca Lodge itself was an adventure with our van negotiating narrow, curvy, unpaved single lane roads. The Colca Lodge has three Thermal Baths at the river level for the guests to use. After a long drive from Arequipa, it felt so good soaking up the tired muscles and bones in the Thermal Bath surrounded by beautiful mountains.

Colca Lodge

Colca Lodge

After dinner, I stepped out of our cottage to survey the night sky. Of course, the Milky Way was shining bright and brilliant.
Even the elusive dark clouds of the Milky Way were easily visible to the naked eye.
Right above the center of this image is the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
June 19th, 2014. 8:32 PM.

The Milky Way, right above the cottages!
June 19th, 2014. 8:24 PM.

Stitch of 3 images of the Milky Way, covering almost 180 degrees. Why does the image has the odd shaped edges?
I didn't want to crop the Southern Cross and the Coal Sack (the dark cloud) towards the right edge of the image.
June 19th, 2014. 8:42 PM.

At the center is the constellation Grus.The small blob above the tree is the Small Magellanic Cloud,
a companion galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy. 
June 20, 2014. 4:57 AM.

The bright object is Venus rising early in the morning.
June 20th, 2014. 4:48 AM.