Apart from being a really nice city in its own right, one of the main reasons that people base themselves in Arequipa is its proximity to some amazing natural settings. There are multiple volcanoes and also some of the deepest canyons in the world. One of which, Colca Canyon, was on our list of places we wanted to see in the area.
Now it’s actually not as simple as just ‘let’s go to Colca Canyon’. There are actually quite a few options that need to be considered. To help us with these decisions, we heavily relied on the following blog post. If you’re planning on visiting Colca Canyon, I’d strongly suggest you give it a read:
https://www.alongdustyroads.com/posts/colca-canyon-trek-guide
The first thing to consider is whether to do it independently or as part of an organised group. When we were researching the trip we found that it is probably possible to get there and back using collectivos or buses but that it’s a lot of hassle and there’s quite a high possibility of missing connections and possibly getting stuck in one of the villages for a night on the way back. You also wouldn’t get to stop at the viewpoints of the canyon, where it’s more likely to see condors. The pay-off is that it would be about half of the price (assuming you don’t get stuck and have to pay for an extra night’s accommodation). Given that we didn’t have long in Arequipa, we didn’t want to risk not getting back on schedule, so decided to go with a company.
The second thing to consider is whether to go for a ‘tour’ or a ‘trek’. These are not the same things. A tour (whether for a single day or multiple) involves getting transported from place to place with very little walking. For the multiple day tour you would generally stay somewhere on top of the canyon. The treks, on the other hand, involve actual hiking into the canyon and staying at places at the bottom. We did consider a one day tour given that we did not have a great deal of time in the area, but it was a lot of driving to go for just one day, and a lot of the pieces we read said how amazing the hiking in the canyon was. So, we decided to go for a trek.
The last things to consider are the number of days you spend trekking and the route you want to take. Unlike a lot of popular treks in Peru, there is no one way of walking the Colca Canyon. There are multiple paths and multiple places to stay, depending on how far into the canyon you want to go. Again, we relied on reading other blogs to get enough information to make our decision. A particularly useful one was:
https://www.alongdustyroads.com/posts/best-colca-canyon-route
For a number of reasons, including time and availability, we decided to do the most common 2-Day Trek.
Contents
Day 1 – Condors and Trekking into the Canyon
Day 2 – Getting out of the Canyon, Hot Springs and Llamas
Day 1 – Condors and Trekking into the Canyon
Because of the distance to get to Colca Canyon, pick-up for the trip is at 3am. So as you can imagine, we were not at our most sprightly. Our mood did not improve when we had to sit at the back of a completely full minibus with our packs resting on our knees or placed under our feet. This would normally have been fine – but not for a five hour journey.
We were also quite confused regarding our fellow passengers. They were all Peruvian tourists in trainers and jeans. It turned out that we were the only ones doing the trek – everyone else was there for the one day tour.
We were not thirty minutes outside of Arequipa when we stopped without explanation. We proceeded to wait for forty minutes until one minibus pulled up, one passenger got out and joined our group. I still have absolutely no idea why this happened.
A bit further on down the road, as the Sun was starting to come up, we were stopped by the police. Again, no explanation was given for why but it did result in another twenty to thirty minutes of waiting.
Another unexpected stop was at the volcano viewing point. This was on our schedule for the day after, but at this point we were just joining the one day tour. We weren’t complaining, however, as despite the snow, it was nice to stretch our legs and view the multiple volcanoes that were dotted along the horizon.
The problem with all of these stops, however, was that it meant we were behind schedule for arriving at the canyon. Another delay occurred at the breakfast stop. We were told we had twenty minutes to grab something. All of the group kept to this but when we were finished, the guide and driver were no where to be found and didn’t turn up for another twenty minutes.
We eventually got to the canyon and to the famous La Cruz del Condor viewing point. This is commonly viewed as the best place to see the canyon and to be able to watch the iconic Andean Condors gliding on the currents. Unfortunately, whilst the rest of the group would get to enjoy their hour and a half relaxing at the viewpoint, we had fifteen minutes before we would have to be driven separately to meet up with another group doing the trek. As annoying as this was, we were still very lucky. The views of the canyon were amazing and we did get to see a few condors soaring over us. The sheer size of the birds makes them an awe-inspiring sight. Even Radka, who is not at all a bird-watching person, thought that this was the highlight of the two days.
We were then driven to the start point of the trek and once we met up with our guide and fellow trekkers, things all went a lot more smoothly. I have no idea why we didn’t go with them right from the start, but at least we were with them now.
Not surprisingly when walking into a canyon, the first few hours were all downhill. But it wasn’t an unpleasant walk. For the most part, the winding nature of the path meant that it wasn’t too steep, plus there were amazing views of the canyon as we slowly descended.
Having said that, by the time we neared the bottom of the 1200m descent, my knees and ankles were starting to groan and I was more than happy to reach the river at the bottom.
After so much going down, it was almost a relief to walk up for a bit. And it wasn’t too long before we reached our lunch spot. After this, there was still another couple of hours walking towards the spot where we’d spend the night. This couple of hours was ‘Inca-flat’, which basically means not-at-all-flat. But it was a pleasant enough walk and we got to see the canyon from a different perspective. The flora was very different from higher up in the canyon and we came across some pre-Incan terraces segregating the slopes.
Eventually, as the Sun was threatening to dip below the mountains above, we got our first view of the oasis of Sangalle, where we’d be spending the night.
The bungalows we were staying at were very nice and spacious but didn’t have any hot water, or toilet paper for that matter. The beautiful swimming pool was also pretty cold, so as it was getting dark we didn’t get to take advantage of it as much as we would have liked to. Then after a nice meal in the communal hut, it was time for an early night before the pre-dawn start in the morning.
Day 2 – Getting out of the Canyon, Hot Springs and Llamas
A long day ahead required another early start. As an added incentive to get us up the steep slope, we wouldn’t get any breakfast until we reached the top. Of course we knew this in advance so had brought some snacks, but it was still a cunning motivational tool to get us to don the head torches and get cracking up the trail. I’m actually glad we started so early as we got to see the valley getting lighter as we walked up and yet we still got to do the vast majority of the walk in the shade.
The path seemed steeper than the one we had descended on, and thus there was not as many opportunities to just look around and enjoy the scenery, but it was still there when we got the chance.
And then, after about three hours of hiking, we’d made it to the top. There were a group of trees that we could see from the bottom that we were aiming for and to actually reach them was a moment of relief and great satisfaction.
Unfortunately, it was still another twenty minutes or so to get to the town for breakfast but it was a very pleasant walk and by this point we were all just really happy to be nearly finished. So it didn’t seem at all difficult to get to the town and have the trekking part of the trip complete.
For the next stage of the trip, we drove along the canyon and stopped at a view point to admire the canyon at a more shallow point and to try the local drink – Sour de Sancayo. This is an alcoholic drink made using cactus juice. I didn’t go for this but did try the juice before it was turned into a cocktail and it was pretty nice.
From here we went to soak our aching muscles at one of the hot springs on the way back. Those of you who have read my article on the Salkantay Trek, will understand why we were apprehensive about going here. But we decided to give it a go and were very glad we did. This time there was a range of different pools of different temperatures so it was a lot more fun. Plus we didn’t get eaten alive by flies so that was definitely a massive win.
The route back was stunning. It had been dark on the way so we didn’t get to appreciate it but there were wide plains, distant snow-capped mountains and long roads that stretched for miles. We also made one more brief stop, to watch a herd of llamas in one of the national parks. There were dozens of them and it was really cool to see them in their natural habitat.
It was early evening by the time we got back to Arequipa and we were exhausted but satisfied. Radka might argue that the best parts of the trip, such as seeing the condors, could be done on a day tour, without actually hiking into the canyon. I would argue that it would have been way too much driving for one day and that you would have missed out on a lot of the experience. But I do get where she is coming from. Reading a lot of the blogs beforehand, it sounded like the canyon was the best hike they’d ever done. Whilst I did enjoy it, in my opinion the actual hiking and views were nothing compared to what you would get on some of the hikes around Cusco. The best views of the canyon were all from the top, or near to the top. Once you got down to the bottom, it wasn’t so impressive. Admittedly, you can keep on hiking deeper into the canyon, so maybe this would be worth doing, but from hike that we did it wasn’t amazing. But don’t let that dissuade you. It’s a very unique setting and definitely worth visiting in some form, whether that is on a day trip or on one of the treks. It would be worth it just to spend time taking in the views of the canyon as the condors soar over your head. The hiking, in my opinion, just improved the experience. I’m really glad that we did it.
If you want to enjoy more of the views then feel free to watch our quick video below:
Brit and Czech Abroad 