Trekking Colca Canyon – Day 1

November 19^th

Upon arriving in Arequipa on the 16^th, I booked a three day trek in Colca Canyon with the Peru Hop guide on my bus.  The canyon is one of the deepest in the world, about 1200 meters in depth!  The departure time for this trip was a ridiculous 3 am.  I decided to book it for the 18^th, giving me a few days to acclimatize to the altitude of Arequipa since it sits at 2335 meters and I had just arrived from Nazca which is 505 meters above sea level.

 

I woke up at 2:30 am and sat ready at the front door of the Flying Dog Hostel.  Another traveller showed up with a small backpack, I figured he was probably doing just a day trip.  Around 3:15, a small tour bus pulled up and a guide exited.  He called out one name, which was the other guy, but not mine.  I asked if I was on the list.  “No, but maybe another company is taking you.”  Peru Hop sometimes contracts trips out to other tour companies.  Okay, that seems weird to me.  I noticed that my Dutch friends Reinier and Sibel were on the list.  Damn, I guess I’m not doing the trek with them.  I sat back down at the entrance and soon Edgar, a staff member of the hostel came out of the office where he was sleeping.  He agreed that it seemed a bit odd too.  He suggested that I call the Peru Hop guide who booked the trip but the number must have been incorrect as I received a message that it didn’t exist.  Edgar woke up another Peru Hop guide who was sleeping at the hostel and he tried contacting the office but there was no answer.  By 4:30 I decided that it was a lost cause and headed back to bed…what a bummer.

 

Later that morning I contacted Peru Hop and it turned out that the guide had booked me for the wrong day…so I was going to have to get up again at 2:30 am tonight.  Oh well, I’ve definitely experienced worse delays in my past travels (cough, cough India…).

 

I was picked up at 3 am and after we picked up a few more backpackers from other hostels/hotels, we headed out of town.  Thankfully I was able to sleep fairly well until we arrived at our breakfast spot which was just a local farm up on the hills.  About a dozen of us ate a pretty simple breakfast of bread and scrambled eggs outside in the backyard.  Everyone but me and an American were French or Swiss French.  I was thankful that I can get by in French as the poor American guy missed out on most of the conversations.

 The view from the farm:

Breakfast:

The farm animals had a pretty cozy setup:

We hopped back in the bus and 45 minutes later we stopped at one viewpoint which was gorgeous, but it was followed by a more impressive one called the Mirador del Condor.  Yes, there was a chance we could see condors with their 6-7 foot wingspans!  Almost immediately an older Peruvian man pointed out a male and female pair of condors hanging out on a rocky outcropping.  We watched for about 5 minutes and the female leapt off, extended her wings and disappeared below the cliff but the male remained static.  I decided to wander around and see what else I could see.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see anymore condors apart from a man dressed up as one.  I initially thought it was a statue but as I got closer it moved which startled me.  It was an impressive costume!

Gorgeous views:

Supposedly the starting area of tributaries for the Amazon River:

Mirador del Condor - the male is in this photo...but you'll never find him:

The "live" condor statue:

Eric captured this great shot:

Back in the bus, we continued along the rim of the canyon for another ten minutes, which happened to be Colca Canyon but I didn’t know that yet, and stopped at a tiny shack with corrugated steel sheets for a roof over the brick structure.  A woman, her teenage daughter and a 3-4 year old boy came out of the house to greet us.  Supposedly this was the start point for our trek.  It seemed a bit odd and random, but sure, okay.  They had rudimentary toilets and water and snacks for purchase.  I decided to rent a bamboo walking stick too for all of a dollar.  It turned out that the majority of our breakfast group were doing the 2 day trek while myself and a French couple, Eric and Geraldine, were the only ones who opted for the 3 day trek.  Both groups were hiking the same trail, the 2 day-ers were just doing it faster.  At first, I questioned my choice of choosing the 3 day but later I would be happy with that decision.

 

We met our 22-year-old guide named Clever and our group of 4 headed off before the bigger group set off.  As we hiked, we chatted and got to know each other.  Eric and Geraldine are from the Bordeaux area and just got married 6 months earlier.  They are both doctors in their early 30s with Eric a psychiatrist and Geraldine a cardiologist.  I joked that it was great to be on a hike with a couple of doctors, but that I thought that Geraldine was going to be more useful than Eric on this trip…but then again, we were about to descend a steep trail down 1200 meters into the canyon so perhaps Eric could come in handy should l suddenly get afraid of heights!  Thinking of what I do for a living (paragliding), that was unlikely.

Our first view down to the bottom.  We would be staying down in this spot on our second night at the "Oasis":

Then we saw where we would be staying tonight, I added an arrow to make it easier to tell:

The walk down wasn’t too bad.  It was a rocky path so you had to keep looking down to ensure you had good footing but occasionally I would steal a glance at the amazing scenery.  Halfway down, we saw a condor soar around for a minute which was sweet.

The bridge we would cross is in the middle lower part of the picture:

Rio Colca:

Nearing the bottom, my legs were definitely looking forward to no more descending.  It was getting tough on the knees and the quads.  We crossed the Rio Colca using a slightly decrepit looking suspension bridge.  The wooden deck had some strategically placed large rocks that hid holes that weren’t quite big enough to fall through but your leg would fit…ouch.

Nearing the bridge:

Made it to the river!

Crossing the bridge:

We came from up there!

We relaxed for five minutes under a small shelter on the other side of the river before continuing the hike.  Clever mentioned that we only had about half an hour to reach our accommodation for the night whereas the two-day group had another 3-4 hours to go.  The trail climbed up a couple hundred feet and then leveled out.  The path meandered through a lush green area with trees, farms and small concrete irrigation channels.  I heard some nice pan flute music and assumed that someone was playing music nearby.  “What a nice introduction to the area” I thought.  Around each bend, I expected to run into the musician but no, he kept eluding us…perhaps he was walking the trail too.  Well, it turned out that it was Clever’s cellphone.  I was unaware that he had put on some music for the hike!

 

Walking into a small grassy area with some buildings on a few terraces, Clever announced that we had arrived.  The place was called Posada Gloria, named after the woman who ran the place with her husband.  It was fairly rudimentary with no power in the rooms but it would definitely do the trick for one night, and the views were stunning.

 

We were fed a tasty lunch and then Eric and Geraldine decided to hike up to a nearby town Tapay which was up a spine above us.  Clever said it was probably an hour and a half to get there.  No thanks for me.  Instead, I opted to walk a circular route back along the canyon but higher up, then back down to the bridge where I had a brief dip in the river and sat drying in the sun.  Once the sun ducked behind the massive cliff face that we had descended earlier, I returned along the same route from earlier to Gloria’s.

My room for the night:

On my small hike to the river:

Back at the bridge:

You know that this felt good!

And so did this.

At dinner we met a couple of young Danish guys and we sat around chatting for a bit before we all decided that it was time for bed, and it was barely 9 pm.  A good hike can do that to you!