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Published: August 6th 2007
After completing the Inca Trail we deserved some serious R&R, so we decided not to do anything too strenuous and stayed an extra couple of days in Cusco before moving onwards to Arequipa, a city further south and closer to the coast.
Arequipa has been dubbed ‘the white city’ because many of it’s colonial buildings have been built using a light coloured volcanic rock, and sits in a valley with the huge volcano El Misti towering behind it. We would be using the city as base to explore the Colca Canyon which comes a close second for the title of ‘deepest canyon in the world’ to its neighbour Cotahuasi Canyon which is a whole 163m deeper.
We explored the city for a couple of days before starting the trek and also visited the Museo Santuarios Andinos, which houses Juanita, ‘the Ice Princess’, a young Inca girl sacrificed on the peak of Ampato, a mountain nearby over 500 years ago. Many similar sacrifices have been found on similar mountains in the Andes and it is thought that these sacrifices were performed to appease the mountain gods, preventing volcanic eruptions and avalanches etc… Due to the extremes of cold at the
top of the mountain she’s been perfectly preserved and the museum also contains a lot of artefacts and offerings found in the tombs with the children. All in all it was very interesting and was probably the best museum we’ve been too in Peru.
We set out on our 3 day/2 night exploration of the canyon early in the morning joining our group for the first part of the tour which utilised private transport around the first few sights. As it turned out, we were the only English speakers amongst the group, but thankfully our guide could speak it, so she filled us in once she’d completed speaking to everyone else. First off we drove into the national park in search of Vicunas, which are one of the four South American camels in the same family as llamas and Alpacas although not domesticated and protected by the Peruvian government. They’re only found at high altitude and their wool is apparently second only to cashmere in terms of softness and is worth more per Kg than gold. After spotting a group grazing, we jumped out the car and tried to get close enough to take some photos then were hurried
Wishing rocks...
Create a pile of rocks, make a wish to the mountain gods and tadaaa, it´ll come true!back into the transport as we seemed to be on a tight schedule. We carried on driving and driving gaining more and more altitude watching the landscape around us become more and more baron and desert like. Once we reached the highest point of the tour (4910m, our new record), the car was stopped so we could take in the view of the many snow capped mountains and volcanoes that surrounded us and get some explanations on the very little vegetation that survives at this height. The slightest exertion left us totally breathless so we had to take things slow and we were quite glad to get back in the car so we could descend and get some much needed oxygen back in our lungs!
We carried on driving to our final destination for the evening, a small town called Chivay which was largely uninteresting except for the fact that it has some hot springs associated with them. There were two pools in use, one indoors and one out, we spent some time in each but preferred the one indoors as it was so much warmer and the run between them in the crisp cold air was just too
much.
We spent the night in a hotel in Chivay then were up really early in the morning to head further down the canyon stopping at a few towns along the way to take in some minor sights before reaching Cruz del Condor, a point at the top of the canyon where Condors are known to gather. Luckily for us, when we arrived some condors were already airborne around the canyon and a few were actually perched a little underneath. It was incredible to see such a huge animal soaring so effortlessly through the air and it was amazing to be able to get so close although taking photo’s of something moving so fast was a nightmare!
We spent about 45 minutes at Cruz del Condor, after which we bid farewell to the rest of our tour group who would be returning to Arequipa, while we were placed on a public bus to go further onwards to a town called Cabanaconde. Once we arrived we were teamed up with our own personal local guide who would be trekking with us down to the canyon floor. Sadly for us she spoke no English at all, but it didn’t end
up being a problem as it at least gave us a chance to pick up more Spanish and the views really didn’t need a lot of explaining as they were spectacular. We were given the choice of two routes, the proper one is a round route that takes approximately seven hours, but as it was already getting late that meant we would arrive in the dark and wouldn’t get to appreciate the spring fed pool at the lodge at the bottom so we decided to just take the route that goes straight down, the one that is normally used to get back up and is supposed to take three hours.
We started off in good spirits following the guide through farmland to the start of the trail then started off down the steep, dusty and rocky path to the canyon floor. There were incredible views of the canyon on the way down and every now and again we got tantalising glimpses of the lodges and oasis at the bottom. In the end it was a long two hours down in the midday sun and I didn’t follow the rules about keeping hydrated. Once at the bottom we discovered we
were at the wrong lodge, it was the one next door so we had to head back up the canyon a little. This turned out to be a little too much… as I was already overheating; I promptly emptied the contents of my stomach, and then blacked out.
I awoke in Faye’s arms and then all of a sudden felt the healing hands of our guide. She’d pulled a bunch of foliage and flowers from under her hat, rubbed them between her hands and started smearing it all over my face and neck. It had a really pungent odour and certainly did the trick of bringing me round quickly. I recovered enough to walk the short distance to our lodge and we checked in. We were warned when we booked the tour that they were rustic and they really weren’t kidding, they were bamboo huts but they must have been really short on bamboo. The distance between the poles that composed the walls was about two inches and they were virtually transparent, still the bed was comfortable and that’s all that really matters.
On the way down our guide mentioned that it’s possible to rent mules to take
you back up the canyon very quickly, and due to our general bone-idleness and my earlier funny turn, Faye and I decided that it sounded like a great idea so I arranged a couple for 5 o’clock the following morning, giving us enough time to catch the local bus from the top back to Arequipa. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing by the pool and relaxing and as we both forgot to bring our torches (and the sites lack of electricity) after dinner we both turned in, as it was too dark to see a few feet in front of us.
We were woken the following morning at 3:30 by our guide and told we had ten minutes to get ready as our mules were waiting, so much for 5 o’clock, looks like my Spanish isn’t coming along as fast as I thought! We quickly got dressed in the pitch black and met up with our trusty steeds outside. Faye and I both mounted our mules and then while we waited mine started to get really irritable and stomped around ignoring the pleas of the handler to calm down. I’ve never ridden any animal before, so trust
Colca Canyon
On the way down... me to get the naughty one. As it turned out he was just eager to get going, as once I was given the reins, he was off, whether I had a choice or not. It was really strange to put your complete confidence in an animal to get you safely up a mountain in the pitch black when you can’t even see the trail. One false move and you’ll both go tumbling over the side, if he really wanted too he could have just thrown me off lightening his load considerably. In the end it turned out to be considerable fun, and I really enjoyed every moment. The mule climbed up with ease only stopping every now and again to make sure everyone else was following him, he didn’t even seem out of breath. We got back to the top just as dawn was breaking so it was beautiful to see the sights of the canyon appearing around us. Looking back, even if I could’ve been bothered to climb back up under my own steam I would definitely take a mule, it really was great, sadly I never got to learn his name.
As we got back up so
early we had plenty of time to grab a bite to eat and catch an earlier bus back to Arequipa. Although not the trek we envisioned it turned out far better than I imagined and I enjoyed every moment of it!
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Aaron johnson
non-member comment
half assed trekking
keep it coming bruv hope you both are doing well keep out of trouble love you both loads.xxx