Erin & Regan's South American Adventure

Hola,

From Arequipa we took a 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon - the deepest canyon in the world.  We took a 6 hour bus trip to Cabanaconde.  At times the road was closed... for no apparent reason, so we drove offroad styles (lleno de baches).

Cabanaconde was a very friendly place, so friendly that we had 4 people from 4 different hostals trying to get us to stay with them.  We spent an hour looking at them all before picking ... the cheapest one.

Our room was tiny, but that wasn´t the real problem.  The problem was the water pipe coming through the corner of the ceiling from the floor above which sounded like a river running through our room.  In addition as we were late rising there was no hot water left.

The next day we started our trip into the canyon.  This was the view of the path from the top (you have to look closely to see the trail).

At the bottom of the canyon, on the river are some hot springs and geysers (though only small... no real erruptions).

We stayed  in a "lodge" on the river.  It was very tranquil given that it takes 3 hours to walk there and everything is carried in on mules.  The "lodge" had hot springs which were nice.  Our room was made from mud bricks and bamboo.

That night we went fishing in the river.  This is a view of the river from the lodge.

From there we walked along the other side of the canyon (from Cabanaconde) to the oasis.  Here is a shot as we got close.

It was a blistering hot day and we had walked a total of 3 hours so far so we stopped for a couple of hours and swam at the oasis (in a pool).  From there we had to climb back up the canyon to Cabanaconde.

The view on the way back up.

We decided to stay at a new hostal that night.  This one owned by Pablo, who could actually speak a fair bit of English.  We splashed out and had dinner at his resteraunt, it was very nice.

The next day we travelled to the Cruz del Condor to see the condors.  We spent 2 hours sitting, watching, waiting for a condor which was sitting on a rock not too far from us.  At one point another condor flew past but we got no good photos of it.  Finally the first condor (a juvenile) took flight and graced us with 2 flybys.

There were the customary hordes of locals selling all manner of things.  They start them really young, as you can see.

We waited, and waited, and waited for our bus. It was 1 hour late.  After another 6 hour bumpy bus ride we made it back to Arequipa.