Colca Canyon

The next and the last after Lake Titicaca and Machu Picchu place in Peru that I really, REALLY wanted to see and that I have been obsessed with is Colca Canyon and the condors that you can see flying there. To see them in the full glory we had to leave Arequipa at 4am and drive 160km northwest of the city to Cruz del Condor so we could see them in the early hours of the morning when they fly quite low. The views were of course unforgettable to see these massive birds above our heads, thought to capture them it was a different story. I simply blew it by having the wrong lens in the wrong time plus being in the wrong spot I just had to let go for a good photo opportunity, and enjoy looking at them not through the camera lens. Though in the meantime another photo opportunity arrived and it was a humming bird…this wee buggers are even harder to photograph as they move incredibly fast and move their wings even faster. Although I still managed to take one reasonably good shot. After Condor spotting we got to walk through the canyon for 7 or so hours in almost unbearable heat to our oasis at the bottom of the canyon where we spent a night. And that is our Oasis itself that we could see all day long from the above but had to walk all day to finally reach it at the bottom of the canyon! Our tiny but very cozy and simple cottage that we slept in was just perfect.The following morning we had to leave before the sunrise around 5am and started our climb up out of the canyon. It was a pretty hard almost vertical walk that took us nearly 2hrs but thank God we managed to beat the sun. Morning view across the mountains was totally beautiful and we stayed there for a quite some time. Though watching struggling people walking up in the heat was painful, some had to take a donkey up. When it comes to us…well at this stage I’d say we were pretty fit as we did so much trekking in the last few months.