The Valley of the Condors

One of the main attractions around Arequipa is the Colca Canyon. With a depth of 3,270 meters it is the second deepest canyon of the world. Naturally, Yves and I had to see it. We booked a two days tour, which started at 7.30 am in the morning. It was a 160 kilometer bus ride from Arequipa to Chivay, a very small town in the Colca Valley. On our way we admired the highlands of the Andeans. The landscape is rather barren, with the dominating colour brown and with only small bushes and tufts of grass. The peaks of the immense mountains and vulcanos, some of them active, were always looming in the background. We also saw herds of Alpacas, Llamas and Vecunias grazing in the wide valleys. Worth mentioning is also one of our stops at the height of 4910 meters. We never have been this high and we definitely felt the effects: dissiness, headache and sleepiness.

Llamas and Alpacas grazing in one of the rare green valleys

After a medium quality all-you-can-eat lunch, we arrived in Chivay at around 3 pm and Yves went to the hot springs. I enjoyed the peace and quiet of our hotel room. We skipped the evening programme with traditional dances, as neither Yves nor I are really enthusiastic about such shows.

On the next day the tour started around 6.30 am. To our astonishment, we didn`t drive directly to the viewpoint to see the famous Andean Condors, which only fly very early in the morning, but stopped for over half an hour in a very small town, were there was nothing else to see than sales stands and folclore dance. Regardless of the unneccassary stops, we arrived just in time at the `Cruz del Condor`, which is a viewpoint from where the Canyon is around 1,200 meters deep. Here we were able to see four Condors flying, whereby two of them flew very close by. It was stunning to see these majestic birds from so close, being able to see their immense wingspan of up to 3.2 meters and to observe how they flew effortless ever higher using only upwinds. We spend around 1 1/2 hours at this viewpoint hoping that the Condors would show themselves again. But as it turned out, we were only lucky in the first 15 minutes.

The Andean Condor

The Colca Valley

The beginning of the Colca Canyon and the street to the viewpoint

On our way back we stopped a couple of times, giving us a chance to buy as many souvenirs as we wanted. After a long bus drive back home we arrived in Arequipa at around 5 pm.