Colca Canyon, Peru (10-11 Feb)

10 Feb – our day started at 2:30am and we were picked up at 3am to drive out to Colca Canyon. We jumped into the minivan and were given pillows and blankets so we could sleep. The ride was quite bumpy which made sleeping a bit difficult. At 7am we arrived in a little town where we had a quick breakfast. We then continued driving for around an hour to Condor Valley where we very lucky and saw 8 condors. They where huge – 1 meter in height and their wing span is just under 3 meters. Their young stay brown in colour until they are 18 years old and then they turn black and white and live until they are 70 years old! We were very lucky with the weather in the morning as it was nice and sunny. We left Condor Valley and drove to where we were going to start the hike. We met our guide – Louis. Louis’ grandparents were farmers in the canyon and still lived there so he was very knowledgeable about the history, landscape and flora/fauna.

We were in a group of seven, a Dutch couple, Gerard and Feyley, Thomas the Frenchman, Stan the Swiss scientist and Mardi the local girl from Arequipa. We hiked into the Canyon, starting at about 1100. The descent was 1300m to the river over 8 km of zig zagging down. It got pretty hairy at times. We were walking along high cliffs at times, not good for those who suffer from vertigo. The plus side is that the views are amazing. Having gotten down to the river our legs felt like jelly.

The river is in serious flood at the moment. If you fell in you wouldn’t last 20 seconds. At the bridge I took a pic of Pete to get the river in. He leaned against the rail which gave way. Fortunately he managed to grab the tension cable above him just avoiding falling into the river! On the other side it wasn’t much better. We had an initial ascent of about 100 m but the path literally went up a cliff and then right along it. It was pretty nerve wracking. Lunch was at a local village, it was traditional food, the soups are always good over here. After lunch we followed a tributary river before hitting a sharp 30 min climb. During this time, the weather took a turn for the worse. It started pouring down and did not stop for the rest of the day. Pete and i bought huge plastic ponchos and we looked so funny wearing them but hey did keep us dry (well Pete to his upper thighs and me basically to my ankles!) Louis took us through a couple of other towns and showed us some bug larva on cacti that when squashed produced a deep red blood. The locals use this as dye and mix the red with flowers to make other colours. Luis then proceeded to smear the squashed bug blood over all of our faces to make us look like inca warriors – nice! Apparently the women also use it as lipstick but putting it on my cheeks was as far as I was willing to go. After posing for some cheesy warrior photos we started our descent back to the river and to the oasis where we were staying for the night. The path had become a river and again was quite treacherous but was a good challenge. The views over the oasis was amazing. Raging rivers, waterfalls, lush vegetation and a beautiful bridge to cross that takes you to a rustic camp site with a nice blue pool and cute basic huts. We went for a swim as we were drenched anyway and didn’t fancy a cold shower. Dinner was at seven and after a quick brief we crashed out, ready for the big climb the following day.

11 Feb – We were supposed to wake up at 5am but we didn’t hear our alarm and got woken up by Louis at 5:20am. We felt terrible that the group had been waiting for us for so long. We were eventually on the track by 5:40am. The rest of the team had already walked on by then. It took us about 45 min to catch up to them and we really pushed ourselves. The walk was all uphill and quite challenging. Fortunately it was not raining but we had no view as we were literally walking in the clouds. The trip up took three hours. We had the option of taking a mule up if it got too hard. A few casualties passed us but our group made it up donkieless. We were finished by the time we got to the top. Bearing in mind that we had had no breakfast before the climb and we were at 3000 m altitude so the air is thin up there. We walked into town, had a good breakfast and then made our way along the canyon by bus to a great hot spring to help ease the muscles. We stopped off at a few great viewpoints on the way home and also to get some pics of baby Alpacas. Again in the afternoon it started bucketing down. It took ages to get back to Arequipa, the rain and heavy mist slowed us down to a crawl. When we got to Arequipa it must have been raining heavily the whole day because town was half under water. The driver then dropped us off way away from our hostel. So getting back was a bit of a wet affair, but not until we stopped off and got a bargain bucket from KFC. After a feast, and some serious hiking we fell asleep before our heads even hit the pillows.