We had to get up at an ungodly, horrible, disgustingly early hour so we'd be ready to leave at 3:00. They came to pick us up only half an hour late (grrrrrr), so at least we scoffed a kilo of grapes for an early breakfast. That later turned out to be a BIG mistake on the bus, so at the last hotel where we were picking up gringos I had to hold everybody up nicely and sprint to the toilet. Unlike me, Patrik had this problem not just the once but for several days. Except his was more from fried crap :) . This time the minibus was crammed to bursting and I got a two-metre gorilla issued into an already tiny seat. So not much sleeping happened.
From Arequipa to Chivay, where we had breakfast, it's about 70 km, but on the way you cross a pass at 4,800 m. That's probably partly why I got a bit of a migraine.
Chivay is a smallish town with low houses and dusty little streets at the start of the huge Colca Canyon, which may be some 60 km long and in places up to 1,500 m deep.
After breakfast (bread with jam) we packed our lard back into the minibus, luckily I managed to shift the gorilla over to his girlfriend and got myself a single seat by the window.
When we came out onto the upper rim of the canyon, the gorgeous scenery began. There was beautiful morning light, the area had finally changed from desert to slopes overgrown with green, the river roared down in the canyon, colourful rocks, simply fantastic. Every now and then there was a viewpoint at the canyon rim, so we impatiently kept looking out for when he'd stop. Unfortunately he only stopped an hour later at the so-called Condor Viewpoint, where not only was there no condor, not only were there 500 tourists, but above all it wasn't nearly as beautiful there as everywhere before. On top of that the soft morning light was gone, haze had settled over the valley, so we cursed nicely.
A bit further on he dumped us out of the bus and our guide Lucia took us over. We deliberately hired a private guide, because our long photo stops could be pretty frustrating for a bigger group.
We started at an altitude of about 3,400 m, the target camp down by the river was supposed to be 8 hours later and 1,200 m lower.
The descent was pretty demanding, we didn't get the promised poles, so our knees suffered a bit. The canyon is gorgeous though, and what had already fascinated me from the bus I got to see up close here. The original inhabitants of this area, long before the Incas, built an enormous system of stone terraces and water channels along the whole length and width of the canyon, which allowed them to grow fruit and various kinds of grain here. The stone terraces were practically along the whole length and width of the canyon, so hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of stone walls in an otherwise steep and inaccessible space. 2,000-year-old walls!
After three hours of marching and crossing the river, Lucia gave us a lecture on the local flora and immediately demonstrated curing sunburn with Aloe Vera and a migraine with another plant whose name I've successfully forgotten. We got lunch on the other bank, and given that we're in an area you can only reach on foot, along that demanding stony trail we'd come by, it was surprisingly good. Even the beer was cold J
Along the way we also bought a prickly pear fruit from a local granny. Each one had a different colour of flesh and it was hugely refreshing. It's probably the same fruit we once got insanely pricked by in Libya, here they gave it to us peeled.
The second part of the hike was pretty tough, but we crawled into camp while it was still light. It was a beautiful green peninsula at the bottom of the canyon, with the river flowing around it. Bungalows with thatched roofs, a pool built by the rock, a mango tree loaded with fruit, simply paradise on earth. And instead of enjoying it, we had to go to sleep, because we're getting up at five in the morning!!
