Colca Canyon Trek
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2007
1
19
63
Trip End
Dec 13, 2007
Colca canyon,
Peru
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The taxi and our guide, Alvero, picks me up promptly at 5:20 a.m. We then go on to pick up Sonja and Phil, newlyweds from Switzerland, and rendezvous at the bus terminal with the other three trekkers, Rachel from Toronto (soon to be Nelson, maybe) and Patsy and her 10 year-old son, Brel, from Montreal. There are six of us.
Day One.
We board a relatively comfortable local bus--picture a battered and bruised rattly old thing--and drive for about six hours to our starting point, Cabanaconde, with stops along the way to allow for the bus to overheat, blow a hose, have the bus driver and his conductor jerry-rig repair the hose, get water for the rad, get more water for the rad (yes, I was wondering if we were going to make it--there's not a lot of traffic here.) and pick up passengers, rural folk who are taking their wares to market
Our guide, Alvero
. At any given time during the journey on any of the buses, they will be packed, SRO, and yesssss, at least one of the little old rural ladies got on with a box full of live chicks. Arequipa, where we start is at about 2300 masl. About two hours into the drive and somewhere around the time the bus overheated we reach 4800! Cabanaconde, where we start our trek, sits at 3300. Before heading out we have one of the most amazing locally prepared typical meals I've had yet. After lunch we trek down into the canyon dropping from 3300 masl to Rio Colca at about 2200 in about 3 hours. It's at this point that you can buy a bottle of water for four tmes the in-town price (you need it). Water vending ladies are strategically placed throughout the trek. Now its two hours and 400 meters practically straight up hill to our first stop for the night, a home stay in the village of Coshiñirhua (pop. 65), which sits literally on the side of the mountain. We are all dead tired. Some of the trekkers talk of mule rentals for tomorrow . We rest and are treated to an amazing home cooked peruvian meal that is prepared over an open fire in an adobe hut (see pics). Happy Thanksgiving. Everyone is asleep by nine.
Day Two
After breakfast of farm-fresh eggs and freah bread we head over to the next village, about a 20 minute walk, for a quick tour of a museo featuring traditional native farming artifacts that one of the local ladies put together
Patsy & Rachel
. These people speak a mixture of spanish and quechua (sp?). Then it's on downhill dropping 300 metres in a couple of hours to an oasis where we swim in a spring-fed pool and lay around for an hour or so before another delicious lunch that features pasta (carb load for the ascent).Sonja and Brel will ride mules. The rest of us will walk. The ascent is gruelling. We head out at about 2:30 climbing up a series of steep switchbacks from 2200 masl to 3300 in 27 degree heat. We make it in 2 and a half hours. And guess what? The oldest guy in the group was first! (That's me.) And we passed the group that started a half hour before us. We all have a sensational feeling of accomplishment. By the end we have ascended and descended nearly 3000 metres in total and walked 15 kms. High fives all around. We stay in a hostel in Cabanaconde. Everybody is asleep by nine again.
Day Three.
Up early, quick breakfast and into the bus to Cruz del Condor about an hour down the road for a close up look at condors in flight. And we are blessed. The instant we arrive, five of these amazing birds are gliding around the viewpoint. It´s an absolutely amazing clear morning and the condors are putting on a show. They circle to within mere meters of us. A female lands on a small outcropping near the viewpoint and mocks us, posing for the cameras
The canyon
. I take a couple of great shots of tourists ready at the trigger. Back on the bus to Chivay for lunch and then home to Arequipa, right on time. The Trails
The trails throughout the Colca Canyon are many hundreds of years old. They are the highways that connect the many small villages to one another and to the major centres like Cabanaconde. They are dry and varying in texture from gravelly to rocky to sandy to steps that have been fashioned by hand out the rockier stretches through the years. At various times you will pass local men or women walking up or down the trails either with or without mules carrying their wares to market in the larger centres or returning with supplies of things they cannot provide for themselves on their small terraced farms. They wear the same clothing they´ve worn for years and SANDLES! Their feet look like leather. Often you'll see women of well over 60 packing a mule with a large sack over her should as well. It is like stepping back in time. It is mind boggling to descend into the canyon, look up at the side of what appears to be an 80 degree or greater pitch slope, where it isn't a sheer cliff and realize you just trekked down on trails. And these were built by hand! (See pics)
Okay enough already. This was an absolutely amazing experience. I have seen God...okay, not quite that amazing.
Come back here for pics when I get to 'civilization'.
