A couple of Gringos in a Peruvian canyon

Have you ever gone into an environment looking for that kind of beauty or...truth that a beautiful landscape can provide? Have you ever gone into an environment looking for that but then lost your trail, drank all your water, ate all your food, and stumbled through cacti, toxic tree-bushes, and crumbling rocks? Well, this past weekend at Colca Canyon Andrew and I did so. And we both now have a profound new respect for all environments, especially canyons.

Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world at some 3000 meters, second only to it´s neighbor Colahuasi (I think, it´s something ´huasi). The colca canyon trek has become a popular one for gringos because it is (relatively) easy to do, and easy to access from the white city Arequipa. It is also a hike that gringos CAN easily do without a guide or topographic maps. Besides being an awe inspiring environment the canyon has also become famous for condor viewings. The condor is the biggest or maybe second biggest bird in the world and they are often seen from atop the canyon (however, no matter what the locals tell you about getting up earlier to see the condor or seeing it at a certain spot it all comes down to luck--we saw a condor while walking on the paved road at mid-day...). The towns on the way to the usual canyon take off spot all cater to tourist trekker types and there are towns down IN the canyon where one can sleep, get meals, dip in hotsprings (luke warm springs), and buy really expensive water. Suffice to say the path to the colca canyon is well paved for the ignorant gringo. Ofcourse that doesn´t mean the gringo has to follow it...

The drive from Arequipa to Chivay (the first town around Colca Canyon) is about 5 hours going up, a bit less going down and winds through the dusty outskirts of Arequipa up through arid hills with alpaca roaming around nibbling on bits of vegetation to greener terraced fields of papas (potatoes) lined with waist high stone walls with little cacti planted on top (to stop intruders I presume). Andrew and I got off at Chivay, the first of five or six small towns on the western road to a bigger but still small town where most trekkers take off from called Cabanaconde. To describe one of these small towns is (disregarding some detail) is essentially to describe them all. Chivay is small, there are no paved roads--the roads are dusty and full of rocks and holes--houses are made of brick or some kind of mud brick, usually with a corrugated (I really dig that word) tin or aluminum roof. In the middle of town there is a small well maintained plaza with a few trees backed by a large white church. Farm land surrounds the town, where papas (potatoes, the quintisential andean crop), and corn are grown. Peruano farmers still use old style agrarian techniques. On our walk from Chivay to the next town Yanque (7km) we wave at a group of farmers, men and women, using an ox to till the land. We pass a young girl, maybe seven, in a beaten up sweater wrapped in a colorfully embroidered shawl and the typical (to the region) andean hat pulling a sheep across the road. A note about andean hats. First off they are awesome. Second it seems to be a trend that people in the andes wear hats. Third, these hats are not baseball caps, they are more stylish and traditional to the region (al capone hats in parts of ecuador, big texas like cowboy hats in northern peru, the panama hat--really the montecristi made in southern ecuador, and the cloth embroidered sailor looking hat worn near colca canyon). Also, I do absolutely no justice in describing any of these hats but because I often have moral qualms or just get nervous (maybe both) I usually don´t ask people for their picture. So, instead of taking a bus straight to Cabanaconde (where we will start our trek), Andrew and I decide to walk the road and REALLY see the countryside. The farm terracing becomes more dramatic, and the river colca below us to our right is beginning to form Colca Canyon. We arrive to the next town Yanque, on a dusty road behind a station wagon clown packed with a family, maybe two. We sit down on a bench in a well maintained plaza surrounded by a few trees and backed by a white church (sound familiar?) and eat some bread and mistakenly bought soy cheese. On our way out of town on another dusty road we pass an old woman in an old sweater who points us to the next town, Maca, and shows us the first chapter of the bible. We thank her and walk on. The road is still dusty and flanked by waist high stone walls that contain cows (Andrew moos at a cow), sheep, and pigs. Maybe half way to Maca we decide to hop onto a combi (a kind of short bus or VW van look a like). There is no room in the car so we ride on top. Andrew sits with his legs dangling off the back and I on a bag of rice--our backs are to each other. Dust is kicked up all over, we cover our faces as another car hurtles past us, and look up to see spectacular terraced green fields hovering over us to our left and more to our right beyond the river and canyon. We think to ourselves...yes THIS is the way to see the country. We get off at Maca and sit under a big tree in the well maintained park, church, etc. and eventually grab a bus to Cabanaconde. For sake of you all I will spare you the bus ride and sights because there is more to be told--suffice to say it was crowded but comfy and the mountains that loom over river to our right were spectacular as the sun sunk.

So if anyone is still with me....We began the next morning from Cabanaconde and (with some water, bread, mangos, and bananas) set off down into the canyon. We had not decided on our exact route but we knew that we would spend at least one night in the canyon. There are three routes one can take from Cabanaconde into the canyon, and they each lead to a different small (they aren´t really towns, more like bungalow villages). We took the westerly most path to a small town called Llauar. The palm sized map that we were issued at the hostel indicated that it would take about 6 hours from Cabanaconde to Llauar. So we took off, walking through potatoe farm and a dusty soccer field surrounded by a high fence into the canyon. The canyon environment is somewhat of an enigma...to me. It is some combination of southwestern desert, colorado mountain range, and well there is all this agriculture too. It´s kinda what I imagine southwestern colorado to be like. The path down to Llauar from Cabanaconde zig zags west across the face of the mountain. The country side is dry, it´s hot, we pass big green cacti, and a maleable brown bush that has branch like limbs but never seems to bloom anything. Sheer rock face cliffs rise to the south and cast a shadow over us as we munch on some more bread a few hours into our hike. When we reach Llauar it is noon. Llauar is not but three or four huts on the northern side of the colca river. We buy a three dollar bottle of water (that is expensive down here--but it´s a lot of work to get the stuff down there, the only way to do it is by mule). We both take a dip in the frigid water of the river and dry on the hot rocks river side and watch other tired and dusty gringos roll into town.

This is the junction where we (depending on your point of view) made a silly--Andrew would, or did say--stupid decision. We decided to keep walking to Oasis, the next town east still in the canyon. However, I maintain it was not an entirely stupid decision. Our tiny hand held hostel map of the canyon suggested that it would only take 4-5 hours to do the hike from Llauar to Oasis, and although we were tired, and probably by this point already dehydrated we are two spry youth in the golden years of our bodies. Also, taking into account that the little map suggested it takes 6 hours to descend to Llauar from Cabanaconde (we did it closer to 4), it seemed very reasonable to me that we could make it comfortably before sundown. So we set off from Llauar, ascending the dirty rocky path towards Oasis. Early on we stop to pack a lip of coca leaves (yes they are the leaves used to make cocaine but as a leaf and tea they are harmless--totally not addictive they taste like a bitter green tea and give the user a little buzz which supposedly staves off hunger and altitude sickness). At a fork in the road we turned left (as we were told to) and zig zagged up to a small town encircled by avocado trees. It was here I think that we went wrong. We followed the only path out of town (or what we thought was), passed mules and donkeys grazing in the hot sun, past cacti and the weird maleable plant described earlier onto a narrow dirt road. The narrowness of this dirt road should have been our indicator that we were on the wrong path, but because we could see path directly ahead of us and paths meandering across the mountainside in front of us we continued on. Turns out we were probably on some donkey path, or maybe a game path. Apparently locals don´t stray to much from the regular paths in the canyon because of their tendency (as we found out) to peter out into cacti and toxic bush, and because there is a mountain lion or puma presence in the canyon. So we pressed on. Everyonce in a while we would lose the trail, scramble through bush and cacti, fight through crumbling rock and then come out to our, or a path. We did this four or five times before we realized, or vocalized to each other that we were definetely far away from our real path. Nevertheless by this time we had gone too far to turn back, the sun was going down, we were severly dehydrated, and we could see oasis our destination east of us at the bottom of the canyon on the other side of the river. So we continued on. And we lost our trail again. This time we fought through a lot of brush, got really scraped up by cacti, and dripped on by the toxic plant (we did not learn that it was a toxic plant until the next morning when while hiking back up to Cabanaconde a local guiding mules loaded with goods down to the towns in the canyon told us that the black marks from our skin were from this toxic plant and that if we didn´t get them off in the next four or five days our skin would burn. This plant emits a sort of milky sap, thats...sticky). Finally we came out above a little ravine, maybe 10 or 15 feet deep, created probably by succesive rock slides. We had been fighting through plants, cacti, etc. for a while now, and we were both tiring, dehydrated, started to worry "this is really fucking stupid man," "oh man we could be in real trouble here," "fuck this is stupid. who are we gonna call?" That sort of thing. Still we knew what direction we wanted to go, we just couldn´t find the damn path, and the brush below us towards the river, and above us was really thick. This is the point where George made a probably stupid, but ended up working out ok, decision. Clinging to toxic maleable plant I belayed myself more like tried to belay myself down into the ravine. This was working well until my foot slipped of the loose rock on the side of the ravine and I lost my grip of the toxic plant or it broke I can´t remember, and then I slid down the side hands and knees trying to slow my self down, until I just dropped onto my back. It was a good thing I was wearing a backpack because it seriously braced my fall. After a bit of worrying and me trying to scramble up the other side of the ravine, Andrew made his descent. Which I thought looked rather graceful. He sort of slid down a ways on his butt and then leaped down from there and did a sort of barrel roll (the kind I imagine they teach you to do in the army). Turns out he scratched himself up pretty bad too.

Our challenge was to find a way up the other side of the ravine. It really doesn´t look hard because the pitch is not very steep, but it´s deceiving. The rock gives way under any pressure and the plants that are there are weak and scarce. So after I made an attempt and prompty slid down the other side of the ravine, my ass taking the brunt of the fall, we continued down the ravine on our butts towards the water. We finally managed to get up the other side of the ravine at a spot where the pitch was nice and there were plenty of the toxic plant (the toxic plant, although toxic is the best plant to grab in terms of stability in the loose rock canyon). At the top of the ravine of course there was no path. Only an endless swamp of the toxic bush and cacti. But what could we do? Turning around at this point really really sucked, and going towards the river was a viable idea but in all likelyhood we wouldn´t have been able to descend because most of the canyon rock drops into the river from really high. So we fought through more cacti and toxic bush. By this point we were both pretty beat--Andrew was really dehydrated, had been since that morning probably, but went along on the second portion of our hike probably just because of my urging--I was dehydrated too but was pumped full of adrenaline. This was the first time in the wilderness where I could actually be in a lot of trouble. I thought about what we would do if we had to spend the night there. Would I kill a rabbit or bird with a stone and then roast it...no I couldn´t do that...All we have is a damn mango and two pieces of bread. What the heck was I thinking doing this...Dammit why didn´t I respect the wilderness more...I am gonna die just like Chris McCandless. Dammit I´ve been reading too many books that idealize the wilderness--damn you Jack Keruac and your Dharma Bums. These were some of the thoughts going through my mind at the time. Although I tried to remain as calm and optimistic as possible.

So we trudged through cacti, stopping when we came to a wall of cacti, backtracking, scrambling up crumbling rock, getting poked by cacti. What the hell are we going to do? And then, I hesitate to use "savior" because of religious conotations but it really did save us...on the crest of the hill above us, a dark siloutte. A DONKEY. If there is a donkey up there there must be a path. yes yes yes. So we hiked up through all the gross prickly stuff described earlier, ouch, son of a, there better be a path, please path please, and then a plateau. Where is the donkey? But wait...a path. Yes a path. A path! We finally found a path and followed it racing the sun, entering shadow, then sun, up and over and around ravines like the one we fell into, until we reach the wide crushed stone path that we were supposed to have been on from the start that leads down to Oasis. We sort of stumbled down this path, with that kind of really tired feeling when you´re driving, trying to stay focused...dont turn an ankle, eyes on feet. oh sooo tired.

we arrived to Oasis covered in dirt and scratches. Andrew in his hiking gear, sun stained cargo shorts a cotton t shirt and his earth friendly shoes he bought on state street, and me in actual hiking shoes, a fading tie dyed t-shirt and synthetic shorts. The first thing we asked the people we saw was "where is the water?" That night we swam in a cool mountain water pool and slept in a bamboo bungalow with a couple from Poland. The next morning we ate pancakes (he made them sin huevos for me) and hiked back up to Cabanaconde. We played with some kids while we waited for our bus. We tickled and chased them around the plaza, then took our dust covered stuff and broken box of peach juice (thank you peruvian children) and took our bus back to Arequipa. We have spent the past few days recovering. My body is almost back to normal, but a day after the trek I came down with a head cold and have been trying to fight it off for the past few days. Except for scratches all over his legs and forearms and some nasty gas Andrew is doing well too. Tomorrow we hope to go to Cusco. Everyone at the hostel is really nice--especially these sisters who work here Milagros and Angela. Ok ciao for now.

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