when i arrived in Arequipa at around 4am in the morning I didn't know exactly what to do in it. It was on my way north and being proclaimed the "white city" due to the white rocks a lot of its buildings are built of was worth a visit but what exactly to do there i didn't know. This was a wonderful time to use my LonelyPlanet Peru guide which i haven't opened until now :) So i did just that, in it there is a large section dealing with the Colca Canyon, which is considered the 2nd deepest canyon in the world, second to its neighboring canyon about 2 hours north (apparently the Great Canyon in US does not even come close). Every day tens of tourists groups invade the canyon for a few days of trekking, however the guide said that the trails are actully well maintained and simple enough to be able to track solo. Partly because i did group trekking on the Inka trail, partly because I wanted to save some money I immediately decided I would do just that. If you know me, you'll also know that I'm a challenge driven guy, more so a dangerous challenge driven guy, and that's what this was essentially :)
The following day in the city I did some walking around to check out the local sights, which there weren't too many, but mostly did online research on solo trekking the colca canyon. You can find a whole bunch of info on it online some good some not so good. The best guide I found actually more or less told you the turns of the trek starting from Cabanaconde, a small city on top of the canyon that everyone starts with, about 6h bus ride from Arequippa. The biggest problem is of course that nobody has any good maps of the canyon, well almost nobody, this trekking company Colca Trek actually does have very good altitude and trek map but it costs 25soles which i wasn't prepared to shelf out on a map (once you stay enough in a country you start thinking in terms of their prices and not convert to dollars anymore). The more disturbing info i found on one of the online forums is about a guy who went trekking in the colca canyon by himself, fell down into a ravine due to landslides (very prominent in the rainy season), broke his foot, wasn't able to climb back up and was found dead in about 1 week. And of course most solo trekkers were doing it in pairs of 2, 3, but i was gonna take it to the next level, do it solo solo :) Somehow the dangerous factor made the trip even more attractive to me. Lastly, the trip is usually done in 3 days and i was determined to do it in 2, which is why I was determined to take the earliest bus there the next morning to start as early as possible on the trail.
The next day I wake up at 1am to catch the first bus but of course the info i got from the hostel was wrong and I ended up waiting about 1.5h more at the station for the next bus, not a very good beginning of my trip, but wait, it gets better :)
6h later I arrive in Cabanaconde. As the sun rose some of the most gorgeous views opened before me, it was truly amazing. Green pastures bordered by cliffs into a flowing river past them, surrounded by Andes. The locals of the Colca region of Peru also have very elaborate costumes that they seem to wear on a dayly basis. The different regions also differ in their ornaments as well as the hats they wear, this is mostly noticeable in women.
Having arrived in Cabanconde, I pulled out my hand drawn trekking map (this is almost true :) and started following the turn by turn instructions that i printed out from the net. It all went well for about 15min, then the instructions said i would pass a stadium looking thing on my left after walking on the main road and that's where the trail begins. A few words about the trail I chose: the first day I would go through the town of San Juan de Chuccho and in the evening I would sleep in a small little resort place called Oasis Paradise, next day I would climb back up to Cabanaonde. The trail started at Mirador de San Miguel, which is a small lookout for the elusive Andean condor, which, according to the instructions was after the stadium. At any rate, there is a bit of construction going on right now where the stadium was supposed to be, which made me a bit confused, so i decided to ask the construction workers. At first they were a bit confused, but quickly one of them pointed me toward a direction of a slight hill overlooking the canyon. I went there and sure enough it looked like a lookout, not a very good one, and there were no tourists nearby, so naturally i thought i was the first one, what other idiot would wake up at 1am to take the bus :) This is the view that you see from the lookout, quite amazing, and the village on the middle left i thought was San Juan de Chuccho. At the Mirador the trail split left and right, without any signs whatsoever, however, according to my printed map and instructions i was to turn left so I did to find myself walking a quasi trail that looked more like a ditch covered in stones "it must be not very often used" i thought to myself.
as i keep walking down the imagined trail i keep loosing it now and again until the trail dissappears completely and I am faced with the side of the canyon looking like this. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the entire side of the canyon is full of semi-dry vegetation, cacti, small spiky plants, generally everything was spyky, since it's more or less a desert. As i keep descending more and more plants appear which make the descent really hard since you can't see where the ground is and your feet get stuck in the plants. Every step i make i stop and visually sweep my surroundings to find the best next step. On top of that, because it's rainy season the ground isn't solid, on the steeper portions you just slide along with dirt, stones and plants and stop yourself by clinging to nearby plants. It got to the point that i got excited and happy when I saw mule droppings on the "quasi" path that I took, which meant that at some point a living creature had passed through those bushes. Of course it doesn't help that the sun is right above you, burning at midday and there is no piece of shade to hide and take a break from the ridiculous descent.
About 40min into going down i realize that there is no way that is the main trail and I must have missed something. At that point my clothes were colored in green and torn from the spykes of cacti, my hands were scratched in the same manner from clinging to bushes and boots were full of dirt from sliding down. On top of that I hadn't seen one live being during the entire descent which got me a bit concerned. I decide to climb back up, to people, to civilization, but soon realize that the ground is way to slippery for that. Every step I made i caused a mini landslide, seems the only thing that keeps it together are the plant roots. So i start making progress toward the rocks which were on both sides of this valley I was in...good decision. Naturally you can do some rock climbing on the stones and they are solid, which is exactly what I did. Surely at times i had to crawl up and hold on to plants etc, but i also didn't exactly have a safety rope to save me from falling :)
I climb on top of the biggest rock i could see to asess my situation, and to my surprise i spot the trail across some no-man's land. Immediately I realize that the town below I was heading to wasn't San Juan de Chuccho, but Oasis Paradise that I was supposed to reach only in the evening. At this point i am sure I took the "no-trail" way and was heading on my trek in reverse. That didn't matter though, what mattered is the decision to climb back up the mountain or traverse a few off-road ridges to get to the trai. The first choice seemed to undo all my present toils and scars so I chose the second one. It wasn't easy, but I stuck close to the parapet of rocks for stability against landslides, tried to stay away from cacti, whose spikes are notorious for being impossible to take out, since they break easily, so the technique is you have to let your body form a bit of puss around them and then take them out. In about 30 more min i reached the main trail, a bit scratched up, with dirty, dusty and torn clothes, but ... alive. At this point it was already 12 and I wasn't sure I could make the trail in 2 days so I had to hurry. I literally started running down the trail, after the "off-road" descent this was easy, although equally dusty :) On the way i met a Canadian couple who were climbing back up from doing the same trek. they were running out of water so I gave them half or my bottle, and as grattitude they suggested me a good place to stay at San Juan de Chuccho, a hospedaje called Roy's, if you're ever in the area I highly recommend this place.
some more shots of the trail as it descends toward the lowest point in the canyon i was to go to, oasis paradise.
1h or so later i finally reached this Oasis. It really is a nice place, it's a valley where all you've got is about 5-8 resorts that all have a pool and bungalow type rooms to sleep in. I was immediately greeted by 2 guys one of which turned out to my great surprise and his to be Russian, Oleg Tihonov. What are the chances? I've traveled about 1.5 months now and the first russian I meet is in the middle of nowwhere, at the bottom of the Colca Canyon :) He turned out to be one of the nicest guys ever, offered me to shower and wash off the dust off of everything and some drinking water. By the way, everything in the bottom of the Canyon is ridiculously expensive, since the way to get it there is either human or mule driven and it takes about 4 hours to go up to the village and 2h to come down, obviously in dependence of the load you carry. At any rate, Oleg turned out to be a traveler like myself for about 1.5 years now, who had traveled via autostop through Asia, Africa and now South America. He ran out of money and decided to work a month in one of the canyon's resorts, which is how I came to meet him. Apparently, there's a russian backpacking website, on which Oleg is pretty famous on, but i didn't know that. At any rate, he offered me to stay overnight, and as much as I wanted to play some guitar together at a small campfire in the bottom of a canyon, I didn't have time to spend another day trekking so i went on...
As i departed this is the view that unveiled from my ascent.
top of the ascent, i'm feeling tired but need to press on since I only had a small window to reach San Juan before the sun set. Once the sun sets, you are grounded, there is no way you could navigate the pebble, and dust laid trails on the side of a steep mountain under a flashlight, so i had no time to waste.
I stayed overnight at Roy's place, where they gave me a royal bed and an individual room. Needless to say I slept like a dead person. By the way at Roy's place they cook only vegetarian food precisely because there is no way to store meat in the frige, since there is no electricity, but it was really really good... i think i might like a vegetarian way of life.
Next morning I woke up relatively early to start my ascent up the canyon. You can see the trail zigzagging along the side of the mountain, this is what i was to conquer today. Supposedly it takes about 4h of climbing.
Again you pass the same river on a bridge. The canyon now really shows its true form, with sweeping mountain ranges in V formation.
about 1/3 way up, i took a pic of San Juan where I stayed overnight. Roy's house is about in the middle of the picture.
some more majestic views of the canyon. It really appaled me with its sheer scale. "Mosh!!!" as some would say :)
The first bypasser tourists heading down the canyon to San Juan.
you have to take breaks otherwise the altitude combined with the sun is insufferable. It's hard to find shade in the canyon, but I managed to get to an overhanging cliff now and again to take a few breaths of fresh air.
representative of local fauna. These lizards were everywhere, but of course hard to catch on camera.
Shot of the route I traversed the day before through the 2 villages on the side of the canyon and then the trail going down to San Juan. It makes you feel good to know you've done this trail once you see it from above.
A local and 2 mules taking provisions down the canyon.
myself walking up the trail.
a shot of Oasis Paradise from above. This place is massive!
Finally after about 3.5h of ascent I reached the top, in particular the Mirador de San Miguel that I missed the day before. The stadium that I couldn't find was further down the road from the construction. One advice for the colca solo trekker "as you are on the paved road that the bus comes and need to find the Mirador de San Miguel turn left off the paved road ONLY when you see a wooden cross erected on a stone laid platform", please don't get lost like i did. Once I got to the top I felt this elated air that I'm finally above this sun burned, cacti desert land and I'm alive, with some scratches and bruises to tell my story.
The rest of the day was uneventful as I took the bus back to Chivay where they had some hot springs to heat my bruised bones :) The village celebrated the Carnaval that day so i got to see these super awesome lamas that someone brought in a their pickup, for the event. The brown dude is super hippy, with his long braided hair over his face, he belongs in SF;)
Shot of the main street in the village along with a huge cross cut out of the plants on the side of the mountain. Back to Arequipa and shortly after Lima.
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