Colca Canyon

After a fairly good night’s sleep in an incredibly luxurious bus, we arrived in Arequipa. This beautiful city is almost entirely built out of volcanic stones that constantly reflect the intense sunlight (which is why the place is also known as “la ciudad blanca”). We spent one day enjoying the city’s river, its snowy volcanoes, beautiful parks, courtyards and small walking streets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, at 03.20 a.m., a bus picked us up to bring us to the Colca Canyon. Our group consisted of two Spanish couples, one British girl and the two of us. Before starting the hike, we stopped at the “Cruz del Cóndor”, a fairly touristic place where many of the Canyon’s condors can be spotted. We were lucky to see two of them coming very close – although we didn’t manage to take any decent pictures.

 

  

Our first day of hiking consisted mainly of walking down to the bottom of the Canyon. This was not always easy because of the glaring sun, the dusty ground and the slippery stones. During the afternoon, we were free to enjoy the peace and quiet of our first sleeping place.

 

 

 

 

Also on the second day we only had to walk for a few hours. Since Véronique had a throat ache, we went to see an Inca doctor, who made her a tea with his own honey and some plants he had collected in the mountains. In his “practice” (which was also the living room and kitchen), he kept a couple of chickens and a whole group of – terribly cute ­– ­­­guinea pigs. A strange thing to see, but the tea actually helped!

 

 

 

  

The place where we spent the afternoon and the night was simply marvelous. Our room was a nice little cabin with a stony floor and a thatched roof. Since there was no electricity, they gave us two candles to light up the place. How romantic! The site, rightly called “Paraíso Lodge”, had its own swimming pool, a series of hammocks, a lot of cozy places to drink a cup of tea or a cocktail and a place to play volleyball. It was full of beautiful flowers and was located just above the river. Incredibly relaxing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The last day was the hardest one: we had to climb more than one kilometre at once (the zigzagging trail you can see on the right side of the first picture is one part of the way up). The average time to reach the top of the mountain is 3 hours, but we managed to do it in 2 hours and 20 minutes :) After the hike, we visited a couple of sites by bus and went to the hot springs of Chivay. Luckily, these were a thousand times better than the ones in Aguas Calientes and helped us relax completely before taking our bus back to Cuzco.