Colca Canyon

In any sort of “Things to do in Peru,” list, Colca Canyon ranks among the top. When we talked to our climbing guides in Arequipa, they recommended that this was the trek in the area to take. Let’s do it!

I (Graham) travelled to Peru with my family 14 years ago. Colca Canyon is something that I have already done. I don’t remember too much of it though, so apart from the Oasis and one part of path, this journey was like new to me.

We signed up for a two day tour. We didn’t have the time to figure out how to do this independently. Knowing what we know now though, independent would be the way to do it. The pick up time was at 3AM. We got in our van with 18 other sleepy tourists, and departed on a 3 hour drive to Chivay for breakfast.

The drive was terrible. Getting up that early means you didn’t really get any sleep, and with the turns and bumps on Peruvian highways, sleep on the van wasn’t really an option. Combined with some questionable stomachs due to pre-cut market fruit (don’t do it!), I couldn’t get breakfast down at all. Cam was ok.

The first stop of many on our way to the canyon was some sort of Inca ruins. I took this time to try and catch up on sleep. Cam didn’t really pay attention, so we’re not sure what their purpose was. Our guide, Percy, kept checking in with Cam to see if I was ok. I guess there’s a history of tourists lying about their fitness and health on the hike, and dragging their entire group down.

The second stop on our way to our trailhead was a condor lookout. Here you could immediately see just how many tourists were going to Colca Canyon. There were at least 200 people on some sort of day trip watching out for the birds. The condors are an endangered scavenger bird, considered sacred by indigenous Peruvians. There are less than 500 in Peru at the moment. We saw a few of them during our Huayhuash trek, but at the lookout there were at least 10. Why were they all here? The locals feed them here for the tourists. Kind of takes the fun out of it.

Colca Canyon
18.5km
1500m elevation

We finally arrived at our trailhead to the canyon. I was feeling better, having taken down a granola bar for a late breakfast. Percy gave us the details for hike. 14km today to the bottom of the canyon, and then 6km out the next morning. Starting at 4AM. Ok then, another early morning. 10 of us from the van were in our group. The rest had split off with another guide.

Day 1
12.53km
450m ascent
1600m decent
4h, 7min walking time

The first 7km are zig-zagging down 1000m to the bottom of the canyon, where the Colca River lays. The trail is mostly composed of loose stones and dirt. It’s hard on the knees, but we powered through. Waiting for us at the bottom was the pristine Colca River. The cold water was very nice on our feet. We waited for the rest of the group to come down Some of the hikers didn’t do so well with the downhill. One of them, Doreen, was a Canadian solo traveler woman in her 60s who was preparing for the Inca Trail. She kept apologizing for being slow, but we were all impressed with her ability. We then continued on to some village for lunch.

Lunch was pretty whatever. We tried alpaca meat for the first time. We’re not fans. Its too chewy, and the taste isn’t that great. The quinoa soup was nice though.

The second half of the hike was very slow. There were a lot of up and downs, and some on the group were not so good at the ups. Percy also stopped a lot to explain the history of the valley. When we were left to go on our own, Cam and I were always 2nd and 3rd in front, behind the semi-retired ultra-marathon runner.

The canyon (valley really) is lovely though. To one side are steeper slopes that house villages, farm fields, and roads carved into the side. The other is an assortment of sharp cliff drops down to the river.

We arrived a little past sunset at our oasis (4:30 or so). It had a lovely pool with a fountain in it! We went for a refreshing swim. The water comes from the river, and is heated somewhere along the journey. Dinner was a standard soup + rice and sauce.

Day 2
6km
1070m ascent
2h, 40min walking

The 4:00AM wakeups come early. It is necessary (apparently) due to the heat and the sun though. Yesterday hiking through the valley was really hot, and the sunlight was very harsh. It was manageable the day before though. We think it’s so they have time for so many extra stops on the way home. The first half hour or so was spent walking with our headlamps, before the sun peeked through the valley, and we got set free.

Once again, Cam and I were second and third up from our group. But there were a lot of hiking group escaping the canyon. We must have passed 30 hikers or so from groups that left earlier. This hike suffers from being overcrowded with tourists, and that was a problem that persisted throughout the day.

We arrived to the top to a lovely view and various hawkers, and hung out while the rest of our group made it up. Doreen made it up in the expected tourist time of 3h, which was impressive. It turns out our group was one of the quicker ones overall. Three tourists opted to take mules out of the canyon. Apparently the ascent was too much for them. One of those though, was a very PO’d boyfriend who looked like his girlfriend made him take the mule as well. We then walked to town to grab breakfast, signaling the end of our hike. But not the end of our tour. We had many more stops to go.

The first on that list was a welcome one. It was a hot springs situated in a valley. The warm water was really nice on our somewhat sore legs. We chatted with the ultra-marathon runner for the duration of the hot springs. Cam was super star-struck that she met someone who has ran the Barkley Marathons twice.

We stopped for lunch again in Chivay, much to the disappointment of our group. There was an optional lunch buffet for 40/S, which after scoping it out we thought was ridiculous. So did what many others from our group did. We ended up going to a set menu joint for a nice simple lunch for much cheaper. I guess this caused a bit of a kerfuffle form the buffet restaurant, as people don’t generally opt out of this lunch.

There were still three more stops before we got back to Arequipa. The first was a lookout to see many volcanos very far away. We saw one erupt live, so that was interesting. The next was a stop to see some llamas, which were herded to this somewhat arbitrary point of the highway by their shepherds. It felt kind of cheap. We did see vicuña’s along the side of the highway though, so that was cool.

We finally got back to Arequipa around 5PM, totally exhausted. We got dinner at our favorite Peruvian-Thai restaurant Kao again, and had delicious shrimp salad rolls, pad thai, and yellow curry. We then got back to our hostel, and got ready for our night bus to Cusco.

Overall, our experience at Colca Canyon was somewhat disappointing. A tour was totally unnecessary for us, and had we put in a little more effort, could have easily done the hike individually. We also would have avoided all of the extra unnecessary stops along the way as well. The human intervention at the condor and llama lookouts cheapened the whole experience.

We’re not going to be in Cusco long though. We have a large independent hike planned out of there immediately. So we will se how that goes next! See you there!