Arequipa & Colca Canyon (E)

After the last few hectic weeks I felt ready for a bit of relaxing to reload my batteries. Arequipa seemed like a good place to take a few days off travelling. I spent five wonderful days doing not much more than sleeping, eating and a tiny bit of sightseeing. The weather at 2,300 meters was excellent with daytime temperatures back to bearable 23°C and relatively cold nights.

The one activity I definitely wanted to do while in that region was a trekking tour through Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States).

I teamed up with three German girls from the hostel who wanted to do the trek independently without guide and so we set off organising transport, food and maps for a three day trek.

We were picked up by a minibus at 3 o’clock in the morning for the five hour journey to the Cruz del Condor viewing point where we arrived in-time for the daily spectacle. The huge condors can be seen flying through the canyon every morning using the rising thermals of the morning sun to gain altitude. We watched around six condors circling over us and then continued by bus to Cabanaconde, where our trek started. The walking trails down into the canyon were fairly easy to find and so we didn’t mind that after the quite touristy Cruz del Condor, there weren’t any other hikers around on our route. We enjoyed the amazing views of the canyon whilst descending from around 3,200 to 2,200 meters, where we found a nice little Bed & Breakfast place next to the river Colca with natural thermal pools to relax after the six hour hike. Sadly we had to say good bye to Regina who had problems with her knee and needed to return by truck.

Colca Canyon

The second day brought the remaining three of us back up the other side of the canyon where we had to traverse a mountain before descending back down to the river – another quite tiring six hour hike but again made bearable by knowing that there are swimming pools waiting for us at the “Oasis”, our camp for the second night. The Sangalle Oasis is a fertile patch of land at the bottom of the canyon with waterfalls coming out of the cliffs and a lot of vegetation like palm trees growing in the otherwise barren landscape, making it an ideal place for setting up a camp.

We went for an early night as there was no electricity and we had to get up very early the next day. We set off in the dark just after 5am for the three hour climb up the canyon to Cabanaconde where we took another group picture and had breakfast.

Me, Ulli & Suse after conquering the three hour climb

On the way back to Arequipa we stopped at an altitude of 4,910 meters where various volcanoes can usually be seen. Unfortunately the weather was quite bad and visibility poor so the only thing we saw where a few snowflakes flying around.

Luckily the weather got better as we drove down to Arequipa and we could enjoy the fantastic landscape of the altiplano with herds of Lamas, Alpacas and even some of the rare Vicuñas.
Back in Arequipa we took two days off to do laundry and relax before heading towards Bolivia.

Vicuñas

Altiplano

Condor

Arequipa Market