Colca Canyon–Southeastern Peru

After Lima we headed south to Arequipa, which along with Trujillo is considered the second most important city in Peru. It is known as the “White City” because it was built with white sillar (volcanic stone) which is plentiful in this volcanic region. The city actually resides in the shadows of three volcanoes, the Misti Volcano, Chacani and the Pichu Pichu Volcanoes.



Like most colonial cities it has a main square with splendid religious architecture and lordly mansions of curved and tall fronts that are characteristic of the 15th & 16th centuries. We visited the museum, ate good food (we both tried alpaca which Sophie liked and I thought was so so…but passed on the opportunity to eat cuy, aka: guinea pig) and walked around the town for a few days but our primary interest for being there was to visit the Colca Canyon and the Lake Titicaca/Puno areas of the country. We splurged and chartered a van with driver and guide to take us to the Colca Canyon.

The Colca River originates in the highlands south of Peru and crosses the Western Andes before reaching the Pacific Ocean, a distance of some 280 miles. Over time, the river has carved a 100 kilometer (62 miles) section more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States, making it one of the deepest canyons on the planet.




The name Colca refers to small holes in the cliffs in the valley and canyon. These holes were used in Inca and pre-Inca times to store food, such as potatoes and other Andean crops. They were also used as tombs for important people.

The drive deep into the canyon took most of a day as the roads are unpaved and you can’t go very fast because of potholes and people and livestock traveling along the road.

We spent the night in the canyon and had a rough time sleeping because it was cold and the beds were very hard–essentially a box spring (not an actual mattress) and a woolen blanket.

There is a video at the bottom of this posting that actually show the condors in flight

After not getting very much sleep we got up very early in the morning to visit 'Cruz del Condor' a popular tourist stop where we were fortunate to view many condors in flight. They soared gracefully on the rising thermals occurring as the air warms and are best seen in the early morning and late afternoon when they are hunting.

I loved the simplicity of life and the native people (Collaguas and Cabanas) who live much the same as they have for hundreds of years. They still maintain ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate crops using pre-Inca terraces. The fields are plowed with mules or donkeys and the harvest is gathered by hand because most of the steeply terraced growing plots are inaccessible by tractors or machines.

The area has a rich tradition of living in harmony with camelids–llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and sheep. Their woolen products, alpaca sweaters and embroidery needlework is colorful, intricate and exquisite. We just could not resist bringing a few examples home with us.

Both Sophie and I loved the native attire and handiwork.

And of Course no venture to the Andean highlands would be complete without Mate de Coca the plant Peruvians have used for centuries to provide energy, combat altitude sickness and many other ailments.

There are California poppies in the Andean highlands too!