June 29-30: Colca Canyon
I had to wake up at 5:30am (!) because the guide for the Colca Canyon trek was picking me up at 6am (!). Victor, a twenty-two year old from Chivay studying tourism (surprise surprise) in Arequipa, collected the five travelers from our disparate hostels. Shockingly every single one of us was doing Peru solo. Victor shoved us into two tiny taxis (which is pretty much the only variety of taxi to be found in most of Peru) and shipped us to the bus station where we barely made the 6:30am bus to Cabanaconde. Off we went on a bumpy dirt road through some amazing mountainous countryside. The place looked like a topographical model because of the extensive terracing.
Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world (beaten by its sister canyon Cotohuasi which, it was recently discovered, is deeper). Because it is set in the mountainous region around Arequipa, it is deeper even than the Grand Canyon and every bit as spectacular. It is home to a large population of Andean condors who can be seen drifting through the canyon on strong thermals.
After arriving in Cabanaconde, I met the group and enjoyed a typical Peruvian lunch of quinoa and vegetable soup and chicken with some kind of thick peanut mustard sauce over rice. Interestingly, the Peruvians don’t use the word “traditional” so much. Instead, you see women in “typical” dress and eat “typical” Peruvian food. And I met my fellow travelers – Carolyn from Britain on a one year South America journey, Mike from Canada on an eighteen month SA trip, Nogah from Israel on a nine month SA trip, and Michael from Sweden, also on an extended SA stay. I was the only one who hadn’t been living out of my backpack for more than six months. Although Cabanaconde is a miniscule town, it had a lovely Plaza de Armas with a statue of a condor under the insanely blue sky. 
So off we went. Day one consisted of a four hour downhill trek where we descended into the canyon, passing villagers with their mules and stopping occasionally for Victor to explain the medicinal qualities of various plants. 
We arrived in San Juan de Cuccho at a very basic eco-lodge where we ate more soup (potato this time) and chicken with rice. At night, after the sun sets, the moon does strange things to your depth perception of the mountain and it looks like tiny gnomes move the entire mountain a hundred yards closer to your sleeping huts. Very weird. We spent the night with Angel (another guide)’s group, which consisted of a pair of Dutch guys, an American couple, and a Brit who had been living in Columbia for the past two years.
The next day we hiked across the valley.
Those tiny white specks hung in the canyon are actually two towns and beyond them, on the other side of the canyon, is the oasis called Sangalle where we spent our second night. Sangalle hosts a couple of sparkling natural pools and a set of bamboo huts whose walls don’t really offer much privacy (as you can see). 
But it did have some awesome furniture made out of palm trees! 
On the way from San Juan we bought some amazingly sour cactus fruit from a local who let us take pictures of her llama. 
It was Carolyn’s birthday that day and Nogah had given her a walking stick with two balloons tied to it and Carolyn donated her balloons to a little girl who had been hiding behind her mother’s skirts.
In Sangalle, Kevin (the Columbian Brit) taught us how to play Shithead, a card game that supposedly every South American backpacker knows and loves. It’s actually a kind of genius game because there are no winners, only a loser. While we were playing, two Peruvian kids (we think they belonged to the owner of our bamboo huts) joined us and we spent a merry couple of hours trying to play our game while keeping the kids entertained and trying to make conversation in our very bad Spanish. Carolyn, being fluent, seemed to have the best luck. “Tire este,” she would tell the kids and they would throw her cards into the pile.
The next day we had to wake up at 3:30am(!!!!!) to make the long climb out of the canyon. I was tired from hiking the two days before so Carolyn and I opted for a mule ride in the moonlight. Our muleteer showed up with two animals and after we got the hang of holding on to the animals through the insanely steep switchbacks, off we went. The mules actually tired before the muleteer did. He powered up the mountain in no time at all. The Dutch guys from Angel’s group won the hike. They made it up 5000 feet in less than two hours. 
By 6am we were all having the best breakfast of hollow triangle bread and eggs I have ever eaten. One little hang up – Jessie, the other American girl, took a mule up the mountain but her muleteer abandoned her before getting into town and Jessie spent the wee hours of the morning getting unbelievably lost in Cabanaconde’s surrounding countryside! Luckily Angel found her after she found her way to the Plaza de Armas and brought her to the bus just in time for us to climb on with a thousand other Peruvians.
We were on our way to Cruz Del Condor, one of the best spots for viewing the Andean condor and a mecca for the tourist buses on their two day Canyon Country tour. And where there are tourists, there are souvenirs. And where there are souvenirs, there are women in embroidered hats and skirts selling the souvenirs. And those women come from Cabanaconde. The hike through the canyon is much less popular than the bus to Cruz Del Condor so the dozen hikers on that early morning bus were crammed in among the short souvenir women with their thick woolen skirts, and whatever men were catching a ride to Chivay. 
The cargo hold and the roof were overflowing with the backpacker’s mochilas and the plastic Duane Reade bags crammed with knitted hats and woven blankets and other alpaca based detritus. We somehow managed to squeeze everyone waiting in line in Cabanaconde on board and then the bus continued to pick up passengers on the way to Cruz Del Condor! The additional people were forced to ride on the roof with the packed goods, or hang on to the ladder on the outside because there was absolutely no room inside. All the souvenirs in the picture below were on my bus. So was the little girl.
After staying for an hour and watching many condors gracefully glide through the canyon and awkwardly land on rocky outcroppings, 
we then made our way back to Chivay for a soak in some much needed thermal springs. They were quite lovely too, crystal clear water that was boiling hot at the spring source and pleasantly warm further out. Then off to a tourist buffet lunch (well, I suppose you can't avoid all of them) where I got my first taste of grenadilla, quite possibly the best fruit in the world. It's an orange fruit with a soft gray membranous sac full of seeds inside. You eat the sac like frogs' eggs or something and it tastes absolutely wonderful. Fantastic stuff. 
Then back on the bus for the long ride back to Arequipa.
Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world (beaten by its sister canyon Cotohuasi which, it was recently discovered, is deeper). Because it is set in the mountainous region around Arequipa, it is deeper even than the Grand Canyon and every bit as spectacular. It is home to a large population of Andean condors who can be seen drifting through the canyon on strong thermals.
After arriving in Cabanaconde, I met the group and enjoyed a typical Peruvian lunch of quinoa and vegetable soup and chicken with some kind of thick peanut mustard sauce over rice. Interestingly, the Peruvians don’t use the word “traditional” so much. Instead, you see women in “typical” dress and eat “typical” Peruvian food. And I met my fellow travelers – Carolyn from Britain on a one year South America journey, Mike from Canada on an eighteen month SA trip, Nogah from Israel on a nine month SA trip, and Michael from Sweden, also on an extended SA stay. I was the only one who hadn’t been living out of my backpack for more than six months. Although Cabanaconde is a miniscule town, it had a lovely Plaza de Armas with a statue of a condor under the insanely blue sky. 
So off we went. Day one consisted of a four hour downhill trek where we descended into the canyon, passing villagers with their mules and stopping occasionally for Victor to explain the medicinal qualities of various plants. 
We arrived in San Juan de Cuccho at a very basic eco-lodge where we ate more soup (potato this time) and chicken with rice. At night, after the sun sets, the moon does strange things to your depth perception of the mountain and it looks like tiny gnomes move the entire mountain a hundred yards closer to your sleeping huts. Very weird. We spent the night with Angel (another guide)’s group, which consisted of a pair of Dutch guys, an American couple, and a Brit who had been living in Columbia for the past two years.The next day we hiked across the valley.
Those tiny white specks hung in the canyon are actually two towns and beyond them, on the other side of the canyon, is the oasis called Sangalle where we spent our second night. Sangalle hosts a couple of sparkling natural pools and a set of bamboo huts whose walls don’t really offer much privacy (as you can see). 
But it did have some awesome furniture made out of palm trees! 
On the way from San Juan we bought some amazingly sour cactus fruit from a local who let us take pictures of her llama. 
It was Carolyn’s birthday that day and Nogah had given her a walking stick with two balloons tied to it and Carolyn donated her balloons to a little girl who had been hiding behind her mother’s skirts.In Sangalle, Kevin (the Columbian Brit) taught us how to play Shithead, a card game that supposedly every South American backpacker knows and loves. It’s actually a kind of genius game because there are no winners, only a loser. While we were playing, two Peruvian kids (we think they belonged to the owner of our bamboo huts) joined us and we spent a merry couple of hours trying to play our game while keeping the kids entertained and trying to make conversation in our very bad Spanish. Carolyn, being fluent, seemed to have the best luck. “Tire este,” she would tell the kids and they would throw her cards into the pile.
The next day we had to wake up at 3:30am(!!!!!) to make the long climb out of the canyon. I was tired from hiking the two days before so Carolyn and I opted for a mule ride in the moonlight. Our muleteer showed up with two animals and after we got the hang of holding on to the animals through the insanely steep switchbacks, off we went. The mules actually tired before the muleteer did. He powered up the mountain in no time at all. The Dutch guys from Angel’s group won the hike. They made it up 5000 feet in less than two hours. 
By 6am we were all having the best breakfast of hollow triangle bread and eggs I have ever eaten. One little hang up – Jessie, the other American girl, took a mule up the mountain but her muleteer abandoned her before getting into town and Jessie spent the wee hours of the morning getting unbelievably lost in Cabanaconde’s surrounding countryside! Luckily Angel found her after she found her way to the Plaza de Armas and brought her to the bus just in time for us to climb on with a thousand other Peruvians.
We were on our way to Cruz Del Condor, one of the best spots for viewing the Andean condor and a mecca for the tourist buses on their two day Canyon Country tour. And where there are tourists, there are souvenirs. And where there are souvenirs, there are women in embroidered hats and skirts selling the souvenirs. And those women come from Cabanaconde. The hike through the canyon is much less popular than the bus to Cruz Del Condor so the dozen hikers on that early morning bus were crammed in among the short souvenir women with their thick woolen skirts, and whatever men were catching a ride to Chivay. 
The cargo hold and the roof were overflowing with the backpacker’s mochilas and the plastic Duane Reade bags crammed with knitted hats and woven blankets and other alpaca based detritus. We somehow managed to squeeze everyone waiting in line in Cabanaconde on board and then the bus continued to pick up passengers on the way to Cruz Del Condor! The additional people were forced to ride on the roof with the packed goods, or hang on to the ladder on the outside because there was absolutely no room inside. All the souvenirs in the picture below were on my bus. So was the little girl.
After staying for an hour and watching many condors gracefully glide through the canyon and awkwardly land on rocky outcroppings, 
we then made our way back to Chivay for a soak in some much needed thermal springs. They were quite lovely too, crystal clear water that was boiling hot at the spring source and pleasantly warm further out. Then off to a tourist buffet lunch (well, I suppose you can't avoid all of them) where I got my first taste of grenadilla, quite possibly the best fruit in the world. It's an orange fruit with a soft gray membranous sac full of seeds inside. You eat the sac like frogs' eggs or something and it tastes absolutely wonderful. Fantastic stuff. 
Then back on the bus for the long ride back to Arequipa.
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