Start of Colca Canyon Trek

The plan for the day was to start on the Colca Canyon trek.
The trek is normally done in 2 days and basically involves going down one side of the canyon from 3200 mts at Cabanaconde to 2100 mts at the oasis at the bottom of the canyon and then up again on the other side to various villages at about 2500 mts, in one day. On the 2nd day, one can trek down into the canyon and up again on the Cabanaconde side using a different path to the top of the canyon and then loop back to Cabanaconde.
Normally, all the tours follow the route in the opposite direction but we felt it to be more convenient in this direction since we would then avoid the crowds and reach the various places in the path when no one else is there.
We woke up at around 7 am and had freshened up by 8 am. By the time we had our breakfast, it was about 9:15 am. It had been a lazy morning and we were about 1.5 hrs behind our planned time of departure. The clouds and rain from the previous evening had passed and it was a clear sunny day. The sun was directly overhead and it was quite hot during this part of the day.
The start of the trek goes through some lovely fields of maize just outside the village. The lush green fields in the backdrop of the mountain range behind are a beautiful sight to behold. The locals have diverted water from the streams using aquaducts and sluice gates to water their fields.Read more