Visiting Colca Canyon
Visiting Arequipa and not seeing Colca Canyon is like visiting Arizona and not seeing Grand Canyon.
Colca Canyon, one of the world’s deepest canyons, can be explored on various itineraries. The most common one is the 2D/1N option with an overnight stay in Colca Valley. (I did it 8 times, and wouldn’t hesitate to do it a 9th time!) Tours can be booked with any travel agency in Arequipa, and should include bus transportation (Colca Canyon is about 4 hours away), a night at a local hotel, a guide, and a hike along Colca Canyon. The prices range between $90-125, depending on the extras included. The longer 3D/2N Colca Canyon option includes trekking inside Colca Canyon.
If this is your first time in the Peruvian Andes, you’re in for a photography treat. Be it driving through the National Reserve Salinas and Aguada Blanca, that spreads over nearly a million acres and offers vast panoramas of pampas, snow-capped mountains, lagoons, wetlands and volcanoes with groups of llamas, alpacas, wild guanacos and even the elusive vicuñas grassing next to the road.
Or the village of Chivay, the official entrance to the Colca Valley and one of many picturesque towns in a region where native people still live the way they did 100 years ago. Or the terraced fields on the hillsides of the deep-cut Colca Valley, or condor spotting from a mirador above the Canyon’s rim.
Things to see and do
Colca Canyon is a river canyon situated in Southern Andes 100 miles from Arequipa.
It is 60 miles long and 11,000 feet deep, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. It was named after colcas, stone warehouses used by pre-Inca and Inca people to store grain.
Colca Canyon was discovered in 1981 by a Polish rafting expedition, and proclaimed with its 11,000 feet the deepest canyon in the world. Later on, a new giant fissure was discovered nearby, and this next-door neighbor is believed to be even deeper.
Colca Canyon follows an east-west direction, and is characterized by a wide valley with a narrow gorge in its upper part (also known as Colca Valley), and a deep, V-shaped canyon in its lower part.
A natural trail runs along it, offering sweeping views of the Valley with hundreds of kidney-shaped, stepped terraces that date back to pre-Inca days. Maize, potatoes and quinoa are still grown on them.
The Canyon can be trekked; entering it on a trek costs S/70 ($20), which can be paid on the way. The landscape down the gorge is spectacular but the hike is tough and long – it’s a steep descent in harsh Andean sun down through the canyon, and a killing ascent on the way back. There’s a village at the bottom, a sort of oasis, with a very mild micro-climate that allows for the cultivation of tropical fruits. No roads go down there, so when the villagers need to reach the valley above them, they have to climb for 9 hours.
Located at the end of the hour’s walk along the Colca Canyon, Cruz del Condor Mirador is the most popular spot for viewing Andean condors.
It is here where they fly out of the canyon’s 11,000 foot depth every morning.
Andean condor is the most evocative symbol of the Andes. It is the largest flying bird in South America, venerated by the Andean people as god of heaven and the upper world since 2500 BC.
The bird is found in mountainous regions as well as near coast and even deserts – its range begins in Venezuela and Colombia, where it’s extremely rare, and continues down along the Andes to Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, and through Bolivia to southern Argentina.
It is one of the world’s longest-living birds – it has a lifespan of over 70 years.
Condors are mostly black, but males have a white ‘collar’ around their necks, and white markings on their wings. Their heads are red to blackish-red, and bold.
They have a wingspan of up to 10.5 feet, and can weigh up to 26 pounds, which makes them too heavy to fly without help. That’s why they’re usually seen soaring near rock cliffs where they are using warm air thermals to aid them in rising in the air and gaining altitude.
Condors are vultures, feeding mainly on large carcasses. They mate for life.
With its strong wind currents, Colca Canyon is one of the best places to see them at close range. A colony of a couple dozen condors roosts here on inaccessible rock ledges, leaving their nests every morning at 8 am and every late afternoon at 4 pm to search for food.
There’s a higher probability of spotting them during the dry season from April to November, though they can be seen all year long. The famed Cruz del Condor is an observation point where tourists can view the spectacular drop of the canyon to the river below, and the flight of the condors.
The people working the fields of the Colca Valley are the Cabanas and Collaguas, two pre-Inca ethnics who have lived in the region for more than 2,000 years.
The Cabanas inhabited the lower regions of the valley, grew corn and spoke Quechua. The Collaguas inhabited the upper regions, kept alpacas and spoke Aymara. Aymara and Quechua are two main indigenous languages spoken throughout the Andes; the Quechua was later adopted by the Inca.
Originally, the two groups were not allowed to intermarry. To ensure this, different head deformations were developed, achieved by binding wooden blocks to babies’ heads – one group had tall and thin skulls, the other wide and long. The Spanish found the custom monstrous and banned it.
Nowadays, you can recognize who’s a Cabana and who’s a Collagua not by the shape of the skull but by the shape of the hat.
The Collagua women wear flat white straw hats decorated with a lace rosette, while the Cabana women wear rounded cloth hats decorated with cotton embroidery.
The colonial towns of the Colca Valley where the people live (Chivay, Yanque, Coporaque or Ichupampa, to name a few), with their Spanish colonial layouts and sturdy, two-tower churches, are all worth checking out. Originally, the local indigenous groups occupied different areas, but the Spaniards forced them to leave their original villages and moved them to centrally located settlements.
These towns might not be around for much longer – due to frequent seismic activity and bank erosion, the whole valley suffers from frequent landslides that take parts of roads or villages with them.
Two miles outside of Chivay are situated the La Calera thermal pools.
La Calera is a complex of natural hot springs in a scenic mountain setting. The entrance fee is S/15. Access is possible by colectivos (S/1), private taxis (S/6), or by a 45-minutes’ walk from Chivay (for free).
Andean Camelids
There are four groups of South American camelids, each with its own characteristics. They are the llama, alpaca, guanaco and vicuña. Llama is the domesticated form of guanaco, alpaca that of vicuña.
Llama is the largest and heaviest. It has long legs and crooked ears known as ‘banana-shaped’ ears that distinguish it from other camelids. It was domesticated 5,000 years ago by the Andean people who used it as a source of fiber and meat, and as pack animals. An adult llama can carry up to 100 pounds.
Some 65 % of the world’s llamas live in the high plateaus of Bolivia. They typically live up to 25 years.
Llamas are very friendly, curious and pleasant to be around. If they were bottle-fed or over-handled as youth, they’ll treat humans as they treat one another (spitting at them, kicking and neck wrestling them).
Guanaco is a wild camelid inhabiting both the planes and the mountains of South America.
It can live at altitudes of more than 16.000 feet.
About 80 % of them are found in Patagonia, Argentina.
Guanacos are excellent runners (35 mi/h) and swimmers.
Their fiber is a reddish shade, comparable to the best cashmere, and valued second only to that of the vicuña.
Alpaca is native to Peru with 95 % of them living here.
They’re smaller than llamas, and have a rounder, ‘smooshed in’ face, slender neck and furry tuft. They can crossbreed with llamas – the cross is called a huarizo.
Alpacas are very gentle, intelligent and observant. They often stand quietly in place and stare. To show friendly behavior, they make clucky noises.
When they’re content they hum, when in distress they spit a green mix of stomach contents.
They all share a bathroom. When using it, they stand in line and go at once.
Alpacas were not bred to be working animals but for their fiber that has been described as stronger than mohair, finer than cashmere, smoother than silk, softer than cotton, warmer than goose down and better-breathing than thermal knits.
It has no lanolin which makes it hypoallergenic, it is flame-resistant, and doesn’t itch. It comes in a wide range of natural shades ranging from white to black with greys and browns. It is mostly used for making knitted and woven items.
Vicuña is the smallest and rarest of the camelids.
It is more delicate and graceful than its cousins – it looks more like a gazelle. It is the national animal of Peru – about 80 % of them inhabit here.
Vicuña has the finest animal fiber in the world. Because of the quest for it, the animal was driven nearly to extinction – in the 1960’s, vicuñas numbers were reduced to only 6,000. Various conservation programs had to be introduced to ensure its survival. Nowadays, as their numbers grew to 125,000, trade on vicuña wool has been enabled again.
Vicuñas produce only small amounts of wool that can be shorn only every three years. At that time, they’re caught in the wild by being herded into corrals, shorn and then released. Freshly shorn, raw wool is sold for $200/lb. Because it is sensitive to chemical treatment, it is left in its natural color.
The total annual supply of vicuña wool is only about 12 tons, compared to approximately 25,000 tons of cashmere. Per pound, vicuña costs between $200 to $300 as compared to $40 to $50 for cashmere, and $2 for wool. It is rare to see a 100 % vicuña garment since it is very expensive. A vicuña wool scarf costs $500 (Peru), a coat $30,000 (Italy).
