Colca: the World´s Second Deepest Canyon

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Or maybe the first; depends on how you measure it. Either way the darn thing is over 3000 meters deep, which puts the Grand Canyon to shame.

Of course, we never saw THAT part of the canyon- it takes more time and effort than we wanted to expend. What we saw was beautiful: rugged cliffs, crashing waterfalls and majestic peaks, but in no way did it match what we had imagined.

Our tour began with a 6 hour bus ride to a town abover the canyon, followed by lunch and then a hike down. Martina and I were feeling good, despite our climb of El Misti the day before. The hike down, only about 1000 meters or so, took a little over three hours.

We were clearly in better shape than the rest of the group, which funnily enough happened to be made up of 4 people from London (an Indian couple, Raj and Ritu and two students from King´s College, Rups and Hannah) and Drew, a med student from Park Slope. Small world.

We spent the first night in a beautiful, little adobe cabin with a thatched roof. We even found a scorpion on our wall before going to bed. After answering questions about the size, color, etc of the poisonous bug, we were told that it wasn´t dangerous but Martina´s plaintive look convinced the hostal owner to go to our room and remove the frightening thing. Then we covered ourselves in 6 blankets and went to sleep.

Day two was supposed to be the difficult day, a three hour walk to the Oasis where we sat by a beautiful, rock-hewn swimming pool where we ate lunch, followed by our climb out of the canyon. Our guide, Elias, a 25 year-old with a good grasp of English and a goofy sense of humor, told us his record for the climb is 1 hour and Martina and I were convinced we could match it.

This is called hubris. With Drew in tow, we climbed out in 3 and a half hours, a good time, especially for gringos, but nowhere near a record time Hannah decided to ride a mule out (WIMP!!!!) while Raj, Ritu and Rups took over five hours to finish. Dinner that night was well deserved.

The next morning, we took a short bus ride to the Condor Reserve, where we watched these gigantic birds with 3 meter wingspans soar through the air. Elias told us that there are only 110 left in Peru, which is up from near extinction 10 years ago. Then we began our trip from hell.

We caught a local bus from the Reserve to Chivay where we would eat lunch and sit in the hot springs. We had assigned seats but a drunk man and two women refused to get up. Somehow I ended up sitting but the bus got more crowded, standing-room-only for this 2 hour trip. More and more people kept pushing there way on, heads were hit with elbows and forearms, people even sat on the roof of the bus. The bus stank, Martina was close to puking and I was in a surly mood.

Lunch was delicious, which improved everybody´s mood, and then we lounged in the hot springs for 45 minutes. The springs were divided into different pools, one for toursists, the rest for the locals. We pay more of course but our pool was cleaner.

Then it was back onto the bus for the ride back to Arequipa, a four hour trip. This time, only one person stood in the aisle, we were all able to sit in our assigned seats and we rode in luxury compared to the trip to Chivay.

Martina and I loved the hiking, feeling particularly strong after El Misti and M was thrilled watching the condors fly. All in all, a pretty decent trip.

Today we visited Juanita, the Ice Princess, a 12-14 year-old girl sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago on the peak of a volcano. She was perfectly preserved, organs intact, by a large glacier that was later melted by the eruption of another nearby volcano. The Incas believed the mountains were gods and had to be appeased in bad times and only the best, most beautiful virgins were sacrificed. It was an honor to be chosen because one was going to commune with the gods. The museum offered very real exposure to a very forign practice.

Tomorrow, we´re heading to Nazca to see the Nazca lines and then north for more hiking in the Cordillera Blanco and more ruins near Trujillo. Only three more weeks; gotta make the most of them.

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