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This is the story of my Colca Canyon trip, At least it's the way I remember it.
I got up at midnight on Monday the 5th to start the trip and within the hour I knew that the 5 Israeli boys that were going with me were going to be the kind of guys that would hold up the works and make us late for everything. They were in their early 20's and just finished their required time in the military, they talked BIG but before the two days were up I found it hard to believe that they spent any time in the armed service at all.
I took this tour with a man from the hotel that I stayed at in Aerquipa, he spent about 20 years in the New York area. He gave me a good price for this trip and all totaled there are 7 of us.
We got off the bus in a tiny town and had breakfast in a little shack over-looking the Colca and met up with two other tour groups that will go their own way, we will meet again that night at the bottom. We were on our way at 8 am. for the 2 hour trek down the switchbacks of the beautiful Colca Canyon. The day was great, blue sky's, warm but getting hot and you can see the camp wayyyyyyy down there, it has about 10 bungalows made of small cane and straw roofs, the swimming pool (very nice) palm trees, tree trees, flowers, green grass and a cool breezes called my name over and over.
I must say, by the time I got to the bottom my legs were like that of limp spaghetti. As I fell to the cool earth I looked over to see the pool, BUT there was nothing I could do about it for about a 1/2 hour.
After a nice swim and a short nap I took a small walk in the bush to find a nice green field with a couple horses eating away next to some palm trees. Over in the shade I sat on a warm rock and just sat there for maybe a hour enjoying the peace and quite, the cool breeze and the sound of the river just over the hill.
When I snapped back to the real world I remembered that it was time to eat. Soup to start and something like mashed potato's. For the rest of the day I found time to sleep, played games, laid in the sun, had supper, sat at the fire and talked to people from all over the world and I went to sleep around 8. We have to get up at 4:30 am to go back up.
And you know it, I was the one that had to get up and wake every one up and wake them up again. I was packed and ready to go before anyone even got up so I went back to bed and waited in my warm blankets.
We had hot tea for breakfast and hit the road at 6 am just as the sun was coming up. It was going to take us 3 very hard hours to hike up the canyon and we were off.
I had a great time on the way up, my motivation to keep me going was to make it to the top before the 5 Israeli's. I am a far cry from being in shape and they just got out of the military, well I just kept pushing my self, one step at a time, GO Phoenix, DON'T STOP. needless to say I was at the top 20 min. before the first Israeli got there!!!!!! and made it in just over 2 hours.
The big thing to see here is the Condors, the largest fling bird in the world, I did not see one until the bus ride out, every one was asleep so I was the only one to see it.
We stopped in the town about three hours north of Arequipa to go to a hot spring and that was very nice, we had some food and made it back into town by 7pm. All in all it was a good trip and will remember my time there and I hope that you can enjoy my story.