The Hardest Part Was The Walking!

Arequipa

Alright! Arequipa, the 2nd largest city in Peru. About the size of Edmonton... Not much to say about it other than its a great place to start a trek into Earth's 2 deepest canyons. We only spent 1 night there and we saw a movie.

Cañon del Colca

Our trip to the canyon got off on the wrong foot. As we were leaving our hostel in Arequipa, 2 people arriving told us that the buses were on strike! This was at 6am and we were pretty choked. We thought it might be another Riobamba where the reason we came ended up not working out. We decided to try our luck though and managed to get on an 830 bus. No signs of a strike.
I thought that maybe the provincial buses might be ok, but maybe our company was being manned by scabs... who knows. So the bus ride was 5.5 hours pretty much off road, but we soon found out that it was well worth a sore bottom. Our stop was called Cabanaconde at the end of the line, but on the way we saw what is described as some of the best pre-Incan terrace farming in existance. The people of this region (having no flat land) were forced to terrace entire mountain sides and river valleys to create enough flat ground to grow sufficient crops for their population. That was only in the shallow part of the canyon though. Colca Canyon decends to a outrageous depth of 3191 meters at its deepest! 3.2 kms making it only the 2nd deepest in the world next to the neighbouring Cañon del Cotahuasi which is 163 meters deeper. Cabanaconde is the "basecamp" for the route we took down. Our trek was only 2600 meters though so it wasn't too bad. We were told to expect a walk of about 2-2.5 hours down, and 3-4.5 coming up. Our plan was to climb down one day, spend another day at the bottom hiking around, and the next we would return to Cabanaconde. It only took us 1.75 hours to get down which we were proud of especially since it started to rain about 20 minutes into the hike. Our digs at the bottom were...rustic. 4 half walls made of mud bricks, topped with bamboo, and roofed with bamboo and leaves encompassing about 40 square feet (5x8 feet) of dirt floor, but it was cheap. (about $2.50 a night each) The day we spent down below was great. There are 4 or so villages lining the walls of the canyon. We hiked to 2 of them and got to see rural Peru at its finest. Adobe huts and lots of donkeys.
And drunk, kinda smelly men to talk your ear off...
Once that guy got going on any subject (trout, bushes, alfalfa juice, ladies) he was impossible to stop. We were in bed by about 6:45, due to exhaustion, and lack of electricity which was beneficial to our 6:30 start to the journey back up the canyon wall. We left early expecting to take up to 4 hours in order to catch our bus back to Arequipa, and avoid the sun which could probably kill you without proper water supplies. It only took us 2.5 hours though and we even managed to pass some locals who tend to move pretty quickly (sometimes running) up the steep inclines.
Apparently we're superstars. When we reached level ground at the top, the path we were following turned into a stream so we were forced to choose our own adventure through some of the aforementioned terracing. We had been told that the bus left at 1pm and it was only 9am but within 5 minutes of walking down the street we flagged a bus down and spent the next 2 hours shivering on the bus.
All that sweat we worked up wasn't all that great for sitting still at the back of the bus while bundled up locals prefered to travel with their windows open.... there was snow in some places, and we were wearing shorts! We've left Peru behind for now, and travelled to La Paz, one of 2 Bolivian capitals at a dizzying altitude of 3700 meters.

We'll be talking about Bolivia next time though.
Cheers
Chris + Melissa

PICTURES OF CAÑON DEL COLCA