Live the life you have imagined: canyon de colca

So picking up from where I left off, Marco and I arrived in Arequipa that night and made our way to the hostel we'd picked out on the bus from my trusty guidebook. I'm ashamed to say that our first night in Peru we went and ate at a Mexican restaurant. The guilt did slip away pretty fast though when I was tucking into delicious enchiladas after living off a Chilean travelers diet of completos, churrascos and empanadas the last week and a half. The next day we shopped around for a trek to the Colca Canyon finally booking ourselves in for a 2 day excursion that started the next day. In case you wanted to know, Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world being more than twice as deep at the Grand Canyon in the United States. Exciting! That night we went and visited the Santa Catalina Monastry which is over 400 years old.

The Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa in the Plaza de Armas

Inside the Santa Catalina Monastry

We woke up at 3.30am the next morning to get ready for our 4.30am pick up. A knock at the door 5 minutes later informed us that our shuttle was waiting for us downstairs. Thank you to the woman who sold us the tour for telling us the wrong time. Marco who was smart enough to pack his large backpack the night before ran down to try stall them whilst I frantically packed up my stuff. Needless to say by the time I made it downstairs we were not greeted to happy faces. Ugh, we were those people. A couple of hours later we stopped for a very average breakfast then we made our way to the view point 'Cruz del Condor' to try catch a look at some Andean Condors but I didn't see any. Arriving at the entrance it was time to get hiking, so we were split into 2 groups to begin our descent into the heart of the canyon. The views are spectacular the whole way down. You could see the Colca River that runs through the canyon, and the oasis we were going to stay at for the night that is able to stay green all year round due to water that springs from the mountainside. Part way into the trek it was then I got to see my condor. Hoorah. Further along the way we walked through a couple of villages that exist inside the canyon. One of the larger ones even had a primary school and child care center. Upon asking our tour guide more about it she told us that the majority of children that live within the canyon don't end up going to high school once they finish primary because it's too expensive for them to travel outside the canyon or pay school fees which was pretty sad.
Eventually we got to the bottom, but not before missing the rain that had started to fall. Lucky we were in the faster group of the two because the second group arrived a good while after us which must been pretty miserable with the downpour. There was no electricity in the oasis we staying the night at, so we enjoyed a candle lit dinner with some extremely salty pasta and box wine Marco had bought at the village we stopped at for lunch. Good call Marco. The next morning we were off again at 5am, the big incentive being breakfast which wasn't happening until we arrived at the top. A very steep zig-zagging track led us out of the canyon. Marco, myself and our new Canadian friend Jen wanted out asap so we busted ahead of everyone making it out in 2 hours rather than the 3 we were told it was going to take. And yeah if it sounds like I'm bragging I probably am because it wasn't an easy hike and I definitely felt a sense of achievement I when I made it to the top. What respect I have for the people who live inside the canyon, and who make their livelihood by walking up this miserable track every day with their mules loaded up with drinks/snacks etc. to sell to tourists like us. We were even given the option the night before to pay extra and take a mule back up which some people in our group actually did. It's really such a wake up call to see how other people in the world live their lives. After walking an easy 20 mins more to a small town for breakfast we went and made a visit to some hot springs for some well deserved relaxing. Arriving back in Arequipa there was no stopping though as we had already booked ourselves on an overnight bus that night to Cuzco for the much anticipated part of our Peru trip - the Inca trail & Machu Picchu.