Cañon del Colca

My plan had been to do Cañon del Colca by myself instead of booking a tour from Arequipa as this would give me more time to explore the canyon. But i realized that it would probably not be cheaper and even though I liked hiking from Quilotoa to Chugchilan all by myself I thought it would probably be nicer to do the canyon in a group. So I decided to book a 2-day tour into the canyon that included a few more stops along the way. Yves was going on the same tour and even though he booked the tour through our hostel and I booked at a different agency we ended up on the same tour anyway.
We were picked up at 3am but could sleep for a little longer on the mini bus to Chivay where we had breakfast. From here we drove to the Cruz del Condor to try spotting Condors. I always thought bird watching was boring. And while we were sitting there on the edge of the canyon waiting for something to happen I was still making fun of it. Until the first condors showed up. They were massive and it was amazing seeing them fly out of the canyon and over our heads!
Unfortunately I learned the next day that they are feeding the birds and that's why they always show up around the same time giving their show. One even landed on a rock really close to the people (there were quite a lot of people here).
From here we went with our bus to a lookout point on top of the canyon from where we started our descent into the canyon. I realized again that my sneakers are not the best for walking downhill. But I just took my time when it got to slippery and could still enjoy the hike and the view. Our group was 14 people all together. All grouped up in 2: 2 guys from England, 2 friends from Ireland, 2 boys from Scotland, a couple from France, a couple from Switzerland, a couple from Holland and Yves and me. I was happy Yves was there and I wasn't the only one by myself. The dutch couple came to Peru to do the Inca Trail. They had booked this month in advance (which is necessary if you wanna hike the "real" Inca Trail). Unfortunately the girl had an operation on her food 2 weeks ago and so they came to the Cañon de Colca to see if she was able to walk a long distance on her foot. Turned out she wasn't. I felt so bad for her. She was in a lot of pain when she finally arrived in the base of the canyon where we had been waiting for her for a while. Luckily from here she could take a donkey. But this meant they had to cancel the Inca Trail.
We continued inside the canyon to a little village called San Juan where we had lunch. After lunch our guide let us choose between 2 routes. Option A would lead us up a bit on the other side of the canyon to 2 more villages and then down again to the "Oasis de Sangalle" where we would spend the night. Option B would skip the villages and just lead us through the nature of the canyon along the river without climbing a lot. Luckily no one was really into visiting 2 more villages ;)
We arrived to the Oasis (which is just a bunch of hostels with pools, no real Oasis) around 4pm and the sun literally just sunk behind the canyon. We still jumped in the pool really quick before it got to cold. I expected a cold shower so I ran straight from the pool to the shower to just get it over with and then put my warm clothes on. I was pleasantly surprised that the shower was hot! I shouted for everybody to come and have a hot shower till I realized I was in the only shower there was. I tried to hurry up and not use to much hot water. In the end it lasted for 12 of us.
After the hot shower we got together in the restaurant area as our guide had promoted a bar with happy hour. Turned out the bar was kind of a surprise box. The swiss couple ordered first and only got a warm wheat beer. Yves managed to score a cold Pilsener for us to share next. After this other people got cold wheat beer or frozen coke but it seemed there was no normal beer left. As I really don't like wheat beer I thought I should at least give it a try to get another normal beer. When I went back to the bar and asked for a beer a girl told me there was only wheat beer but as she opened the fridge I could see the Pilsener. So I pointed to it and even though she told me this was "reserved" for someone else she sold me one more. It was always a big laugh when people returned to the table with new drinks - usually not what they were planning to get.
Dinner was at 7pm what felt pretty late as we had been sitting there waiting for over 2 hours already. It would have been a typical situation to drink to much before dinner but luckily I remembered the canyon we would have to climb out of the next morning and stopped in time. After dinner there wasn't anything else to do the going to bed but as we had all gotten up pretty early and had to get up early again the next morning it felt ok to do so.
We started climbing the next morning around 4:45. This was to make sure we made it up before the sun became to hot. But it also meant it was cold and completely dark. We started hiking as a group at a pretty slow pace. But this should keep us from getting to exhausted to early. As I knew I wouldn't really be able to talk anyway walking constantly uphill I put my music on my ears, pointed my flashlight on the ground towards the person walking ahead of me and just made one step after the other. I had been a little scared as people kept saying the climb was super exhausting and I didn't know if I was really completely fit again after Cusco. But walking like this it was really doable. When we were halfway up our guide let us "run free". I walked with Yves and the swiss couple and even though I fell back a little towards the end we all still made it up in little over 2 hours. Yves was waiting for me on a piece of grass in the last turn as this was in the sun. A perfect spot to wait for the rest of the group. I was even more impressed when he pulled out some chocolate - you can always count on the swiss 😅
When everybody was up there we walked the last bit towards the town of Cabanaconde where we got our well deserved breakfast. Breakfast was inside a building which was also pretty cold. So after breakfast we went out onto the main plaza of the little town where we all lay down on the ground in the sun warming up. It was amazing lying there in the sun with closed eyes, listening to the sounds of the village knowing we had already achieved the goal of the day with climbing out of the canyon.
From here on we were on the bus for the rest of the day with lots of short stops for pictures at different lookout points. At some market we got to try "Colca Sour" - a Pisco Sour with the juice of a cactus fruit - really good. Before lunch we visited some hot springs next to the river. I never thought I could enjoy the whole hot-and-cold-thing like in a sauna but after the really hot water in the pools cooling down in the river was amazing. And it surely was good for our muscles after the hike.
After lunch we made 2 more quick stops before heading back to Arequipa.Read more