To alleviate the monotony of sitting around all day and going out at night with new friends that we did most of last week, KP and I convinced our friend Nettie to go on a two-day trek of Colca Canyon with us. Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world, deeper than the Grand Canyon as well. Trekking, we were led to believe by the brief description given, would be a easy walk down and a nice nature walk around the canyon. WE WERE WRONG, very very wrong.
The trip started leaving from our hostel at 1 30 in the morning on Sunday. We took a four hour bus to the town called Cabanaconde located at he rim of the canyon. The town was filled with Quechua women who wear brightly colored dresses and hats and are usually selling some kind of baked goods or carrying huge colorful bags on their backs. After breakfast which was one egg and the triangle bread they have everywhere in Peru, we started our trek at 7 30. The first couple of hours were nice, we got beautiful views of the canyon from above, plus a little bit of vertigo. We will post pics, but google it if you can, it really was amazing. Anyway, the first half of the day was going all down hill, which started out pretty easy then it got steeper and the path narrower and rockier. If that wasn’t tough enough, the edge was constantly a cliff, so if we fell, we’d be coming home in body bags. This helped me, Elisa, realize a new fear of heights I have.
After 4 hours of endless fear and a bit of pain, we had lunch in the canyon. Those couple of beers from the night before must have hit at this point because we all passed out for about 45 minutes in the grass out front of the restaurant- term used loosely. We set off then for the next 4 hours of the day, The sun was quite high at this point so it was scorching hot. This part of the trek started fine, then we had to go up hill for about an hour and a half, and this was probably the lowest the three of us felt the whole trip. Then there was a part where path was only 6 inches wide, with a cliff on one side. This 2 seconds of my life will probably stick with me as the scariest in my life. (This is Kristen and I personally, even though I have a fear of heights, was ok. I think this journey helped me conquer my fear).
It wasn’t all near death fun though. We went through a couple small town located in the canyon in which the people that lived there would have to hike the entire trek we did to get any kind of goods. Many of them had mules to help carry goods and it seemd to be a regular occurence for them to hike all over the place. We even saw a group of guys who had a pparently just played soccer about 1.5 miles down the canyon. It is crazy how in shape thwey are! Finally, before sun down we made it to Our camp site for the night. It was supposed to have hot springs or something, but was freezing by the time we got there. The whole “oasis” was a little demoralizing.
WE started trekking at 3 am on monday. It sounds insane, but this last part was my favorite part of the trek, primarily because it was pitch black out and you couldn’t see the plummet below. (This was my least favorite part as my asthma kicked in immediately . It was a four hour trek straight up hill on a very rocky path and I would have to say the dark scared me more becasue I could not see what was down below! KP) It was all up hill, and the sun finally rose the last hour and a half of the trip up. KP used her ingenuity after three hours of uphill hiking and got a mule the last part of the way and beat us all to the top (personally my favorite part of the trip, except for when the mule in front of me kept stopping and we were on the edge of a very steep cliff and it lightly kicked my mule in the head). Nettie and I finished in the middle of the group of 8. Needless to say, finishing felt amazing.
We had breakfast in town, where Nettie believes I got food poisoning. We got back to Arequipa at 4 and left for Cusco at 8 for an overnight bus, the worst bus of my life.
Anyway, all is better today and we are planning on going to Machu Picchu tomorrow.
Ciao
E