Arequipa & Trekking Colca Canyon

Hola Amigos,

Apologies for the delayed blogging but as you will find out we have been away from technology trekking and on buses, or just out of the internet loop for a while. This means that I have to go back to our time in Arequipa approx 17 July and slowly, through numerous blogs work my way up until the present.

One of the first things that we did in Arequipa other than check into a hostel was to eat fabulous crepes at an awesome French Cafe - I had caramel custard and raspberry ones with ice cream which was awesome!!!!!! We spent the rest of the day seeing the colonial architecture and shopping for lama and alpaca items.

The next day we were up at 3am for the start of our 3 day Colca Canyon Adventure. It is about a 7 hour bus trip to the start of the trek, hence the hour of departure. Sleeping on the tiny bus that had another 15 people on it was a challenge, however time seemed to pass by and it was not long till we arrived at the Condor Lookout, approximately 3400m above sea level. We spent about an hour there but actually saw more condors from the bus as we drove away than we did at the lookout, they need warm updrafts to soar on and it was only really starting to get warm when we left. They are about 1m tall when standing with a wing span of 3.5m. The small town just beside the Colca Canyon is called Cobanaconde which was the stop from the bus; the next two days would be by foot. We were lucky enough to arrive whilst the locals were celebrating one of the virgins (I thought there was only Virgin Mary but I’m not sure who we were celebrating). One family each year takes responsibility for feeding and providing beer for the town for the festivities! How crazy is that! It’s a big honour and they more or less spent the year doing fund raising activities to pay for it.

So now to the canyon! It was crazy steep, the first day we went down, down, down for about 4 hours or so. It was steep switchbacks for most of it. All had to be done by pedestrian or donkey, no cars. We finally crossed the canyon over a raging river and found ourselves in an oasis! It was so lush and green, quite a contrast to the dry desert with only rocks, cactus and salt bush. There are 8 little communities in the Colca Canyon, 2 of which were above 5000m. We walked through 3, staying the night in the family of one. The next day we continued along the canyon to the oasis, swam in a swimming pool that has water straight from the river. Then the real challenge began, after lunch we started our epic trek 1200+m vertical to get out of the canyon. It was pretty intense, so steep. I got out of the canyon 3 hours later just before dark. It was truly a test of character. According one version of the lonely planet it is the deepest canyon in the world, according to another it is the second. Either way, I was pretty happy with our efforts getting into and out of it in one piece.

Our group and guide Solome were awesome; we have caught up with some of them further into our travels and have details for future travels when in their parts of the worldJ.

The final day was back on the bus for some sight seeing on the way back to Arequipa. It was a pretty awesome trip and good training for Inca Trail.

Arequipa is a beautiful colonial city. On our last day Bron & I went and saw the Inca Mummy Juanita, a 12 year old girl sacrificed by the Incas to the mountain gods about 500 years ago. She is so famous because her body is almost completely preserved due to the ice on top of the volcano and for the insight she provides into Ancient Incan culture. Due to her fragile state she is only on show for half the year, the rest of the time she spends in a freezer away from damaging lights. We saw all of the artefacts that were buried along with her and the other child sacrifices that have been found from the area. It was really interesting learning about the Inca´s.

In the afternoon we went to the Monastery del Catalina. It is a really beautiful monastery that has been open to the public since the 70´s. The architecture was amazing and it is basically a city in itself, we took about 2 and half hours to get through it.