Colca Canyon, Peru - 3 Day Trek into the Canyon

 

 Above: First look of Colca Canyon

Let me take you back to three month ago, when I was planning this trip, and I decided, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to go on a three day trek into a canyon, after traveling HARD for two and half weeks?" Flash forward to the night before we were supposed to leave: I'M FREAKING OUT! We are exhausted. Leaving Puno at 7:00 am, getting to Arequipa at 2:00 after another bumpy bus ride, walking around in the heat looking for the tourist office where we pay the remaining balance for the tour, and collapsing in our room with bouts of food poisoning.  And here we were, supposed to leave our hotel at 3:00 am to do a horrendous amount of physical exercise. Alex says, "Hey let's pack for tomorrow", and in all my wisdom I say, "Nah, we'll wake up at 2:30 and do it tomorrow". BANG BANG BANG. I fall out of bed and open the door. It's one of the hotel employees telling us the bus is waiting for our pick up and we better high tail it out there. Hindsight, am I right? It's 3:30 am, the alarm didn't go off, and we were completely unprepared. We managed to pack everything in one bag that we needed for three days in ten minutes, check out of the hotel (where we left the rest of our stuff), and jump into the bus of some VERY angry looking fellow trekkers, who managed to get up on time. And why did we have to leave so early? It was a four hour drive to Colca Canyon, and the main reason you want to make it there by 7ish is to see the flight of the condors:

I know it looks small, but they were massive. It was amazing; all at once they leave the cliffs of the mountains and soar into the valley. 

And then we left for our trek. Here at the top of canyon we were told what we'll be doing. We spend the day descending into the canyon, around 4-5 hours of hiking straight down. We stay at the first little village and should arrive around 1:30, which is just in time since the sun sets at 2:30 pm down in the canyon. The next day we leave bright and early where we cross through 3 other villages in the canyon to eventually make it into the "oasis". Here we spend an hour or two before the sun goes down to swim in the pool and enjoy some drinks. The next and final day is the hardest....the ascent. We climb straight up out of the canyon for 3 hours. Didn't sound too bad when we started.....

 Our group...pre any hiking:

 After hiking down for about an hour we saw the valley below:

 The terrain here really reminded us of home:

 The bottom at the bridge. Alex and I were much faster than everyone else (and a british girl, Georgie) so we made it about an hour before everyone else to the stopping point. It wasn't easy though. It was blistering hot on the way down, I can't say we didn't slip more than once in some sketchy places, but all in all, it was doable.

 A rock telling "do-it yourselfers" how to get to the villages and the "oasis".

 Our swimming pool. Just kidding, but honestly I didn't expect much better than this:

 We got to our sleeping point, and lucky us, Alex volunteered us to go on a second hike for another hour while there was still light. What was really cool was all the fruit trees we came across, like this one:

 An accidental picture taken of the room. Again, much better than I expected:

 That night we realized two things: one, we forgot to bring a roll of toilet paper, and two, a flashlight was essential, not optional. We took inventory and realized four pieces of kleenex and 5 wetnaps weren't going to make it through the trip, especially since Alex's allergies were acting up. As far as our no electricity situation went, we had to borrow a candle from one of the villagers, and a lighter from luckily, a smoking German. While we were all sitting around dinner that night, laughing and having a good time, our guide suggested a different route we might take the next day. For those willing, we could climb an extra two hours and go to some secluded ruins thusfar undocumented to the current tourist population. He said it would definitely add to the difficulty of the trip, but definitley worth the hike. Stupid us said, "Yeah! Come on everyone, you'll forget what you never did and remember what you did do!"

The next day six of us set off for the alternative route:

 The trail we hiked down yesterday:

 We climbed for a good hour, when our guide said, "Hey guys! I found an alternative route! We can go straight into the ruins!" The "alternative route" was a small line, where maybe thousands of years before there might have been a trail, but now it was just rough terrain. We hacked our way through this for a good 45 minutes, climbing over walls and making some jumps I definitely wasn't comfortable with. In the end we found ourselves some bones:

 After a couple of hours, pretending to be happy:

 At this point my girl side was definitely setting in. I can "rough it" as far as camping and hiking for a couple of days, non-flushing toilets, and a couple of bugs. But after digging and climbing and jumping over poisoness bushes and cacti for two hours, I was a grumpy girl. And soon a whiny one. After a particularly wobbly stone and a close call with falling into a hole, I was climbing a wall and slipped...into a cactus. I FELL ON A FRICKEN CACTUS. Thankfully only my foot and calf got the brunt of it, but I can tell you, I had anything but a thankful look on my face at the horrifying needles sticking out of my leg. I have always been terrified of cacti. Ever since I was watching cartoons where one of the characters falls into a ravine and is in obvious pain after breaking their fall in a cactus, or another movie where a poor dog sticks his face in one and whimpers home to his owner, it just didn't seem like anything I wanted to get involved with. So there, another one of my greatest fears staring me in the face on this trip. I looked back at Alex's equally horrified face, and realized that the only way I wanted to finish this, was with Alex bragging about how well I handled it. I put my foot up, clenched my teeth, and pulled out the needles as fast as I could. Luckily, one broke off in my shoe, so I had to force it in deeper to take off my shoe and then remove it (sarcasm is my best friend for those of you who don't know me). I basked in the congratulations from Alex and my other group members, and continued on, leaving a proud trail of blood behind me. We made it out of there eventually, with another 3 hours of hiking ahead of us, and a pretty beaten up looking group. And onward:

 Waterfall near the oasis:

 We made it. And it actually was an oasis. View from our room:

 Ugh it was a long day, and the longest one still ahead of us. The next day we got up bright and early and after an hour I was able to stop for a second and take a picture of the valley below:

We hired a burro to carry our heavy bag. We gave in:

 And at the top:

We weren't the last but we weren't the first; but only beaten by ten minutes. It was a hard climb, but I still think Machu Picchu and Wanupicchu were harder. In the end I was really glad we did the trek. It was great to push ourselves physically, and we met some really great people. I would definitely recommend it to anyone going near Arequipa. But remember your toilet paper, and bring a flash light!