3 days of extremes

Day 8
2011-01-16
Cabanaconde

This day began early. Packing our stuff, clearing the room, small breakfast on the roof of our hostal and then at 8 ready for our departure! The guides Carlos and the driver Sergio from Colcatrek Agency picked us up at the hostal to our 3 day tour to the Colca Canyon.

Our first stop was the National Reserve around 1 hour away from Arequipa. We went to some geological formations in this area which looked stunning. We were high up in the mountains and you could feel it because it became harder to breathe. Later on we reached the highest point of our whole trip: almost 13000 feet or 5022 meters. That was an incredible experience – breathing was such a struggle and you couldn’t move much without feeling exhausted.

Geological formations

After that we headed towards Chivay where we had a planned lunch at noon. On the way there we stopped several times to watch Lamas, Alpacas and Vicunas along the road through the national reserve. 

At lunch time we arrived in Chivay and had a great and tasty buffet in a nice restaurant. Ok – I must admit that it was quite crowded by tourists…BUT: the food was traditional and very very tasty!

Women selling art

Back on the road towards Cabanaconde – the last village before the descent into the Canyon – we stopped at Maca to visit an old church. It seemed like nothing special is going on there…just ordinary people, farmers, cattle, sheeps and alpachas were strolling around. 

And that’s what made it so special – to see the real life of the people and not just a fassade someone has put up for foreigners visiting and leaving some money. 

Just magical

Our next stop was a spot 30 minutes walk away from Cruz Del Condor. That was the most breathtaking panoramic view of the mountains you can imagine. It felt like standing at the edge of the world breathing in all that green energy that came from the surrounding mountains. Do you recall that situation from the Celestine Prophecy when he was sitting on that mountain and saw the whole universe evolve? That was my personal spot and it almost felt like the one in the book! It is such an incredible spot on earth!

Cruz Del Condor

After taking in the energy of this place we started to walk towards Cruz Del Condor – always at the edge of the canyon which was such an uplifting feeling.

Once we were there, we had the chance to watch a total of 4 condors flying around the mountaintops. We were really lucky to see these holy birds cause usually during that time of year it’s really hard to see them.

After that wonderful experience we drove to Cabanaconde to check into our hotel for the night. After a nice dinner we went to bed pretty exhausted.