Our Colca Adventure

Where even to start ... we had such an eventful weekend that it's hard to know what to write about first. We left Arequipa at the rather insane hour of 1:30 am with our friend and guide. Our bus left the busy (even early in the morning) bus station over-full with people. Imagine a Greyhound where people are allowed to pay extra to stand in the aisle. And stand they did -- all night and into the early morning as we lurched across a 15,000 foot pass in the Andes. The paved road ended at the provincial capital of Chivay, where we stopped for long enough to take a very short break, then continued three hours more via Holdenesque roads to our final stop -- the village of Cabanaconde. Cabanacode is a tiny town perched on a outcropping above the Colca Canyon -- one of the deepest canyons in the world (deeper anyway than the Grand Canyon.) Here's a picture as we started to decend from the town into the Canyon .. note that the bottom is not visible ... it keeps going down and down and down.

As we decended the climate began to change from the cool, almost semi-alpine feel of Cabanaconde to a more arid, punishing environment. Terraces of corn gave way to wild cactus groves, some of which were in full bloom, in this the wet season. (It didn't feel that wet to us.)

The canyon was absolutely beautiful. Unbelievable. 6000+ meter peaks dropped down to a valley floor more than 4000 meters below. That's a sheer drop of over 12,000 feet. We saw wildlife too, including andean condors circling high above, yellow cactus nesting birds and this cool lizard:

Down further in the canyon, we saw a train of burros approaching from the depths. It turned out to be a husband and wife -- well into their sixties -- taking their load of tree fruit from their orchard at the bottom of the canyon (where it is nice and hot for fruit trees) to market in Cabanaconde. That's only a 4500 foot, six hour climb for two senior citizens and their donkeys! Here you can sort of see the woman, with Matt L (w/ backpack) in the background. Shortly thereafter, the woman 'asked' me for a tip for taking her picture.

At long last we reached the bottom of the gorge and the rushing Rio Colca. Here's Matt L crossing the rickety bridge at the bottom with a friend. It was a great feeling to get to the bottom.

The bottom of the gorge is very different from the top. It had an almost tropical feel, and indeed there were palm trees growning in places. Besides fruit, the other principal crop is a sort of cactus that is grown not for its own sake but for the fact that it is host to a parasite bug that leaves strange white deposits behind, but when crushed can be chemically coaxed into producing a rare and bright red dye.

An hour after crossing the bridge we arrived at the tiny village of Llahuar where we planned to stay the night before going on the big Fiesta in Malata the next day. Llahuar was perched atop a cliff high above the confluence of the Colca and another river. It was a beautiful place.

We stayed in a hut. Our party of four tripled the number of inhabitants currently present in the village -- all of the rest were at the big party a few miles away (and a few thousand feet higher.) We stayed in bamboo walled and tin roof buildings with dirt floors and no electricity. If it felt like we were at the end of the trail, that's probably because we were ... The two guys running the town cooked us some river trout on a wood stove.

Then Matt P began to barf. Alot. And other things too. Simultaneously. All night (for 18 hours.) At the end of the burro path, at the bottom of the deepest canyon in the world.

This was disapointing and inconvenient for a couple of reasons. First of all, it probably meant that we were destined to miss the great Fiesta (which we did) because the rapidly dehydrating MattP had to get back to civilization (and antibiotics.) Also, it meant that we faced a 4500 ft. ASCENT on foot back to the town with the only road out of the area, with one of us barfing the whole way in the tropical heat.

That's when Rosa, our somewhat preoccupied but very helpful guide, showed up and said: 'Hay un camion en Llanca a las nueve! Tenemos solomente una hora y media!'

Translation: three miles down the valley there's a road that makes the Holden switchbacks look like a superhighway. Why don't we all scale a number of dangerous cliffs of loose volcanic rock, pick our way through a few cactus plantations and throw up (and other things) in some campesino's orchard so that we can ride in the back of a rickety cattle truck packed full of 40 peruvian farmers and their produce for a 2.5 hour ride up a 3000 foot cliff in the blistering summer heat?

Sounds great!

Here were just a few of our friendly fellow passengers on the camion ... the human ones anyway:

2.5 hours later, thanks to Rosa's idea, we were indeed back in Cabonacode and within reach of medical help. Here's our pimped-out ride through treacherous mountain terrain ... who knew that it was destined to hang 2 wheels off the edge while making switchback turns:

By the way, we've noticed that most camiones (and taxis for that matter) are dedicated to and/or blessed by some incarnation of the Virgin Mary. Ours for example was rather grandiosly called 'La Virgen del Carmen'. In the cabin were multiple talismans of good luck, all featuring images of the blessed virgin and or the sacred heart of Jesus -- all were needed. (We also noticed that a dump truck called El Corazon de Jesucristo was parked nearby upon our return to Cabanaconde. Maybe it went up and down the same road.)

We finally made it home after another 6 hours in another crowded bus, during which it was Matt L's turn to puke out the window at 15,000 feet (motion sickness we think.) We are both healthy now and back in Arequipa at school. The weekend certainly wasn´t what we'd expected, nor what we'd really been looking forward to (see previous entry) but what it was was a great adventure.

-ML MP