Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world, only to another canyon a short distance away in Peru. We decided to do our own trek through the canyon and take our time to enjoy the scenery a bit more.

The first day we had a 3:30am pick-up from our hostel for the bus to take us to the trailhead. On the way we stopped at the top of the canyon at a condor look-out. The view was spectatular: deep canyon, rolling hills of green, waterfalls, jagged cliffs and best of all, tons of condors soaring around looking for breakfast. They came just a few meters away from us at times. After an hour of condor watching we were dropped off just outside the village of Cabanaconde where we would finish our trek. We ended up meeting two German girls from our hostel and agreed to do the trek with them to have some company. The day was 90% downhill, stopping for lunch at a nice village called San Jua, then moved on, almost sprinting straight uphill for about an hour to beat the ensuing monsoon like thunderstorm that was about to hit. We finally made it to a homestay in Cosnirhua where the four of us spent the night sleeping next to a cage of guinea pigs, listening to thunder crashing all around us. During the rain we managed to make our way to the village restaurant nearby for some of the best Peruvian food we’ve had. While chicken, potatoes and rice doesn’t sound like much, when you pair it with the sauces and spices they had it was fantastic.

The next morning we had an early start with only one thing in mind during the scorching heat of the afternoons: oasis. It was a short three hour downhill hike to the bottom of the canyon and our next night’s stay in the green oasis, Sangalle. We stayed at a hotel with an excellent, refreshing pool, excellent mojitos, and s foosball table to boot. The afternoon was spent hanging out by the pool with a cocktail, looking up at the canyon from all sides, partly with wonder, and partly with dread as we would have to climb out of the over 1km deep canyon in one go in the morning.

While everyone else, including our two German companions usually leaves at 5am to climb out of the canyon to beat the heat and get the morning bus back to Arequipa, we decided we wanted to take our time and sleep in. Unfortunately that meant climbing uphill in the sweltering, 30+ heat for about four hours. While the views were spectacular, we were more focused on getting out of the canyon at this point and not falling off a cliff in the process. By the time we got to the top we were so happy to be done we could have collapsed. We went into Cabanaconde, got a hotel room, and slept straight through until dinner time.

The final morning we got on the tourist bus to go back to Arequipa, and had some stops along the way. We got to stop at some nice look-outs of the canyon, and also went to a hot spring to hang out in a pool and stretch like crazy. While we had an amazing time, we were so happy to get back to Arequipa and chill out for a few more days.