Colca Canyon is a few hours away from the lovely Peruvian city of Arequipa. It´s twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, carved out by the Rio Colca as it descends from 3500m to 2200m at the town of Cabanaconde. I joined a 3-day trek/tour to explore this spectacular area. The first day started at 3.30am (!) as we drove to Chivay, at the top end of the canyon. After breakfast there we continued in the van along the canyon which is surrounded by some pretty spectacular mountains - it was beautiful watching the moon set against the Sabancaya and Ampato volcanoes. Our group (me, a Belgian family of four and an Argentinian couple) then stopped at the Cruz del Condor, where you can see massive condors gliding on the morning thermals. What an amazing sight! After this we began our walk down into the canyon. It was quite a rugged landscape, really different to what I'd seen of Peru to that point. As per usual I hiked ahead of the group and it was only as I got deeper and deeper into the canyon that I really got the scale of how big it actually was. I stopped at one point alongside a rocky outcrop, thinking it'd be a great spot for photos. Little did I realise that my backpack had slowly been unzipping as I walked and when took it off my shoulder, out flew my little bag with my wallet and phone in it! Down the side of the cliff! After losing my bankcard and breaking my Kindle earlier that week I sighed, thinking 'well that's just great'. Looking over the side I could see my bag lying there not 2 metres below but impossible to get to. Along came my guide Alex who said 'No problem, I can get it'. He walked around the side to try to reach it from the below, but as I watched him his face was looking more and more perplexed as to how he would reach it. Then along came another guide, who nimbly climbed down the steep cliff face (with me pleading with him to please be careful) and retrieved it for me, phew. Meanwhile Alex was pulling cactus needles out of his pants from trying to get it from the other direction. I felt really, really silly. But so relieved that I didn't lose everything that week!
After descending further in the hot sun I finally reached the bridge the bottom. I found a nice flat rock next to the blue-green river, dipping my feet into the cold water then sitting for a while and meditating in the sun. Then when everyone else arrived we climbed up the other side of the canyon and stopped at our nice but basic hostal where we had lunch, followed by a chilled afternoon of napping and reading, then dinner. The stars were pretty amazing- the milky way was super milky- but it was so cold that bed was the best place to be so it was an early night.
The next day was a relatively level easy walk along the canyon through some small towns, to a place called the Oasis at the bottom of the canyon next to the river. The hostal there had a lovely garden and a pool filled with spring water which was warmer than the icy river water. I had a little swim and lay reading in the garden, then got chatting to some Irish people in another tour group who were staying there. That evening we had a beer and played Uno (I know, crazy partying, huh) but were in bed early for our mega hike back up the canyon. I decided to walk with this other group since they were travelling more at my pace (which also meant a 5.30am start instead of 4.30 which my group was doing!)
So the next morning we left when it was still dark, armed with head torches to climb back up the canyon. Their guide Veronica set a pretty fast pace which wasn´t easy to keep up with, but my competitive spirit and desire for some good exercise (plus a bit of driving trance on my headphones) helped get me to the top of the canyon in a record 2 hours and 40 minutes. Well I don't think it was really a record, but it was a pretty good effort. Me and my adoptive Irish family were all pretty proud of ourselves! We had breakfast in Cabanaconde then began the drive back out of the canyon, stopping at a few little towns along the way, then reaching Chivay again for more hot springs! I gotta say, I'm totally loving the prevalence of hot springs everywhere around South America, particularly when I'm trekking around. At a perfect 39 degrees, this clear pool was sooo relaxing after the morning's steep uphill hike. After the springs was a buffet lunch which was awesome because I was starving - totally took advantage of the all-you-can-eat! Then came the drive back to Arequipa, looking out at the stark landscape with its herds of llamas.
All in all it was a great couple of days, quite relaxing really compared to the other treks I'd been doing - it was like 3 hours of walking per day instead of 8, and plenty of time to soak up the gorgeous scenery! Peru is just amazing and I haven't even seen that much of it! I was a little sad to be leaving the country but with just 5 weeks left I've got so much more exploring to do. So now it's Bolivia which so far I'm loving, but more on that soon...
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