Canyon de Colca

I just got back from a 3 day trek. Here are some of my notes.

I´m waking up to an absolutely GORGEOUS day in the Colca Canyon, supposedly the deepest canyon in South America, if not the world. I´m at the bottom of the canyon in a "hotel" of sorts about 100 yards abve the Colca River. It´s about 6:30 a.m. The sun is shining on the mountain tops in the distance. The cooking fire...over a wood stove...smells delicious. I´m sitting at a wooden table on a wooden bench.

Last night I slept on a bed made out of tree trunks or branchs on a mattress and the usual heavy wool blankets. the bed sits on the dirt floor. I was inside a bungalow made of bamboo with a thatched roof....and slept like a log! The "dining room" is a couple of tables under a palapa, all open air.

Yesterday I joined up with a nice couple from Australia. We took a 2 hour bus ride to a hamlet called Cabanaconde. We left Arequipa at about 6 a.m. and arrived in time for lunch. Then we hiked down the steep switch-backing trail to the canyon floor. En route, we saw condors circling over the canyon. We were told they live to be 70 years old. We met the occasional indigenous family walking up the trail, all in sandals, walking incredibly rapidly, and the kids laughing and joking with each other. What energy! the trail was very slippery in parts: lots of loose rocks and gravel. Amazingly, there are a number of little hamlets in this canyon, all connected only by foot trails. There is no vehicle access.

We spent the night at "Victor´s Hotel." in San Juan de Chuccho. San Juan consists of about half a dozen houses spaced fairly far apart. Victor has chickens, pigs, burros, a dog, and the all-important guinea pigs, so that he can cook up a meal on short notice. As much as I would like to take a shower this morning, I just don´t have the courage to stand under the shower head with only freezing cold water diverted from the stream coming down the hillside. No one else in our group did either.

Our bus ride here was quite a trip. We left Arequipa, where it´s a balmy sort of fall. We then ascended to over 12,000 feet. There were herds of wild vicunas and a mountain pass with a couple of inches of snow on the ground. As always, the bus would occasionally stop in the middle of nowhere, and an Andean worman with her native dress and hat would het on or get off. Where was her house? Where did she come from? Where was she going to? Who knows!

Many of the locals live at the bottom of the canyon where the conditions are like summer. They terrace the hillside and grow corn, quinoa, and many kinds of frut trees, such as the cactus with its wonder fruit, "tuna." The people get by on subsistence farming and the occasional trekking tourist that comes through. In additiion, if they have a good crop of something, they can carry it by burro up the steep canyonsides and sell it at the market.

It´s summer in the Colca Canyon. Everything is blooming. We ate pacay ( a fruit) as well as tuna, the fruit of the cactus, both of which are yummy. Each village has an entrepreneur who has opened up a small store with about 3 shelves of items; just the staples: beer, Coca Cola, chips, beer, cookies, Snickers bars, and beer. The food has to be brought down on burro-back. If you buy a beer, they throw in some fruit.

We had two guides (!). Diana is a 25 year old university graduate from the big city of Arequipa who looks 15. She can´t weight more than 100 pounds, dripping wet. She´s skinny and ran the 400 meters in college. She thoroughly enjoys hiking and and is in training for guiding treks. Rolando is in his 40´s, and he is the local guy who´s done this for years. He knows everyone in all the hamlets, knows all the plants and animals and birds.

She speaks English, after a fashion. He doesn´t. So I got the better part of the deal. Rolando spoke perfectly understandable Spanish and spake at length about the mountains, the canyon, growing up there, condors, all sorts of stuff. He and I went stargazing one of the nights and I saw the Southern Cross for the first time in my life! Wonderful!

Today we wanted to get to the Condor lookout point in the morning when they rise. So we left the canyon bottom at 3 a.m. (!), climbing up out of the steep canyon in the dark with flashlights. It took about 3 hours of pretty strenuous hiking. We came to a restaurant in a little town that was ready for us for breakfast. I was pretty proud of myself. I was in the lead about half of the time, never fell off the edge of the narrow trail into the dark abyss below, and could still breathe without assistance when I got to the top! Rolando, the local guy, admitted that if he needs to get to the top in a hurry, it takes him about an hour and a half! That´s humbling!

At the condor lookout site, it´s always hit and miss whether the weather will be clear enough. today, it was clear and gorgeous. It´s also hit and miss whether the condors decide to fly. We saw one go briefly scooting by. Then a second one flew circles right over our heads for about 10 minutes, sometimes coming within 20 feet of our heads. It was nothing short of spectacular and just incredibly good luck.

Thje condors have a white ring around their neck and a wingspan of 6 to 9 feet!! They are HUGE! What a dramatic end to our 3 day trek.