An Adventure at El Cañón del Colca

Two weeks ago I left my cozy little apartment at 4:30 in the morning to venture out into the wilderness for three days with a group of unknown friends. My guide came in a taxi to pick me up and just to make sure everything was okay, my host father, Henry, got up as well. I thought this a little strange and unnecessary because after all, who in their right mind would come for me so early in the morning other than my guide or someone else from the agency? When I returned, I found out why it’s important to double check.

We left in a standard tourist bus after picking up the remaining trekkers. There were 17 people in the bus in total…four guides and 13 gringos. Gringo, a word I’m sure originated in Mexico, is used here frequently. However, it’s not just used to describe Americans. It’s used to describe anyone with light colored skin. So, regardless of whether you’re American, German, Australian, or English, we’re all gringos. They commonly use another word to describe Americans which I’m not so fond of, Yankee. People from the South can definitely relate to not wanting to be called a Yankee but here, I’m a Yankee.

We arrived at La Cruz del Condor around 9:00 in the morning after what seemed like a dreadfully long bus ride along dusty roads with multiple traffic jams which consisted of cows, sheep, and donkeys in the road. What also made the trip a little more miserable was a certain German girl who at one point was car sick and then once she found a friend also spoke German, became a chatterbox. Not what you want at 5:00 in the morning. However, we all survived to make it to this incredible lookout point where we were able to witness the gigantic Andean Condors soar through the air before taking off to the Colca River below to hunt for food. They are amazing creatures, some with wingspans up to 12 feet. I read somewhere where they are unable to start flying on their own. It is necessary for them to basically fall off a cliff to start flying. They are amazing birds though and I was very fortunate to see several on both my first and last day of my trip.

Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and was created by the Colca River. It is nestled in the Andean Mountains and incredibly, the river is the beginning of the Amazon. The river supposedly got its name from the many holes in the cliffs of the canyon where the Indians in Inca and pre-Inca times used to store food and also used these “holes” as tombs for important people. The crazy thing is, is that after being there I’m not sure who would want to carry food, let alone a dead person, up and down those cliffs and something tells me the trail system is a little better today than it was back then.

Anyway, back to the real story…after a nice lunch in Cabanaconde, where I just so happened to forget my very nice, very new, North Face jacket, we, an Australian named Duncan, a German named Thea, our guide, Jhon (and yes, that’s really how he spelled it), and I headed out for the rim of the canyon. From Cabanaconde it was a five hour hike down mostly steep trails to the canyon floor where we stayed the night at Llanuar Lodge. Where, during dinner a loco kitty continued to hop up into my lap until I finally relinquished the fight and allowed it to sleep on my lap for the remained of the evening. We, Duncan, Thea, and I shared an amazing room complete with handmade bamboo and rock walls, gravel flooring, and pillows made of straw, and of course, no electricity. It was a neat place though and boasted of the canyon’s only thermal pools which we all enjoyed before dinner.

The next morning we started our five hour hike across several mountains around 9:00, after a breakfast of pineapple pancakes, served with, but of course, strawberry jelly. Before leaving home I filled my camelbak, which holds 2.5 liters of water and had an extra 2 liters in two other water bottles. Although it gets very cool here at night, especially in the bottom of the canyon, it gets pretty hot during the day and just as we arrived at Paraiso del Palmas, I sucked the last drop of water from my camelbak. This place was comparable to Llanuar Lodge but had several cold, and I mean COLD, water pools. It was afternoon when we arrived and the sun was still out for a few hours so we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and hung around the pool until lunch was ready. Later that night, after dinner, I looked up into the sky to be greeted by what seemed to be a million and a half stars. I could even clearly see the milky way. It was amazing. There aren’t many places in the world where you can see stars without dealing with light pollution. It really does make a huge difference.

That evening, I began to ask Jhon what time we needed to get up in the morning as an English couple had told us that they were leaving at 5 o’clock in the morning and another group was leaving at 4 o’clock. He was acting a little odd so I thought the better question was to ask when we’d be eating breakfast in the morning. When he replied 9:00, I automatically let out a “Yahoo!” thinking that I could sleep in until 8:55. You can only imagine my surprise when, before 5:00 in the morning, I heard a tapping at the door and a voice saying “Katherine, Thea, Duncan…”. I tried to ignore him for a bit but it wasn’t any use, so I put my torch (headlamp) on my head and began to crawl out of my warm bed. Ugh. Why on earth would anyone get up at 5:00 in the morning to do anything? And, did he expect us to hike up the mountain in the dark? So, the joke was on us, breakfast, although it really was at 9:00 in the morning was at the top of the canyon.

Once we were up and about to leave I searched my bag for my last apple bar, as I was sure I had one left. Hiking up a mountain for three hours without any food in my stomach didn’t sound appealing and with the change in altitude from the bottom of the canyon to the top, it really is important to have some source of energy. After several minutes of searching I finally gave up and Thea offered me one of her crackers and Duncan gave me half of a cookie he was eating. I felt like I was living during the Great Depression and getting food rations.

The hike wasn’t too bad, a 1,100 meter ascent in three hours. There were parts that were difficult because of loose gravel and other parts had large, oddly shaped “stepping” stones cut into the side of the mountain. It took three hours to make it to the top, with multiple stops during which I would blow my nose (as I had developed a sinus infection) and take time to look around me as it was much to dangerous to pay attention to anything other than where your next step would be on the trail.

The last exciting part of the hike took place just mere meters from the top when I looked up to see a man and three burros headed my way. It was too late to go to the left (the mountain side) so I moved over as far as I could to the right to allow them room to pass. The man, burro #1, and burro #2 passed without incident but burro #3 apparently had it in for me because I noticed as he walked he continued to get closer and closer to the edge, where I just so happened to be standing. As he passed, I sucked in my stomach but it was no use as there wasn’t enough room for both of us. Of course, burro #3 being on the inside didn’t have need for concern when we collided. It was I who almost saw my life flash before my eyes when my little feet slipped off the trail and down the side of the mountain. Had it not of been for a rather large boulder within arms reach I wouldn’t be sitting here in my apartment sharing this story with you. How ironic it would have been to be just steps from the top and then die. Thankfully, that day, that wasn’t the story of my life.

Another interesting item that the English couple shared with us is that their guide took them to one of the local Peruvian family’s houses where they donned traditional Peruvian clothing and where given pick axes and some other type of tool used to level the ground. When they began, I thought, “Oh! That’s neat; they got to take a picture. Just like at one of those old-time picture places at Six Flags…cool.” But oh no! They actually worked the fields for several hours. By the time they were finished with their story, tears were streaming down my face I was laughing so hard. Just thinking about it now makes me laugh uncontrollably. So, after we ate breakfast, when our guide told us that we were heading to the fields you can only imagine my horror and that I was thinking, “I actually paid for this?”

Duncan, Thea, and I decided that lots of things are lost in translation, especially when my Spanish is better than our guide’s English. We walked for a while through town but then came upon a tourist bus, which we boarded and eventually arrived in a small town near Chivay, to enjoy some more thermal pools. I am pretty sure these pools were much hotter than the others we had enjoyed at Llanuar, which after hiking 20 km should have sounded pretty good but there was one big difference. That day, it was around noon when we got there and the sun was beating down…not the time of day you want to be hanging out in a “hot tub”.

During lunch, we got to witness the power of numbers when we walked out of a restaurant in search of a more economical meal and the owner ran after us and said we could have soup, salad, chicken or alpaca, French fries, and a drink for 12 soles, which equates to about $4.00 American. So, we all went back into the restaurant and were happy that we’d saved $2.00 a piece. On the way back, we napped, exchanged email addresses, and laughed at the two guys from Ireland and Poland, as apparently they had become great friends since meeting each other a few days earlier. I couldn’t resist snapping a picture; they were just too cute together.

So, all in all, my trip was amazing. It did take me two days of walking back and forth from school to feel normal again. (For two days it seemed that just being able to go up and down the stairs at my house without assistance was a major accomplishment.) I did decide that it was critical for me to have my hiking boots for my next excursion so I’ve asked a friend from back home to send them to me. Hopefully they will be here sometime this week.

And, as for my very nice, very new, North Face jacket, it was waiting for me at the restaurant. They were holding it for me. How incredible is that? Oh, and the part about Henry getting up to check to make sure the guy who came to pick me up was legit? Well, it turns out (I discovered upon my return to the house) that a guy came to the house at 3:00 in the morning asking for me. He didn’t have a car or a taxi and my house mother’s sister who answered the door thought it very strange and told the guy to go away. I still don’t have a clue who that guy was because later that evening we all got together to have a drink and I asked the guide if he came to the house earlier in the morning and he said absolutely not. Here, we call that muy extraño.