Peru: Colca Canyon

If the idea of walking up a steep mountain for two hours, carrying a heavy(ish) backpack and at altitudes of over 3,000m sounds like your idea of fun - get yourself to the Colca Canyon in southern Peru.

That mammoth hike - more of which later - was the final testing part of a great three day experience in stunning Peruvian countryside.

I was picked up in a minibus at 3am, and after a circutous route round the backstreets of Arequipa - picking up various other groups along the way - we set off on the three hour journey to the Colca national park.

Along the way, I got my first experience of the effects of altitude. Drifting in and out of sleep, I kept being awoken by my lungs struggling to take a proper breath. It's a weird experience, and all it takes to stop it is to take a deep breath, but it's slightly unnerving all the same.

After a brief breakfast and some last minute fretting about whether we had the right gear, we set off.

The first stop was at Condor Canyon, the spot with the deepest drop and where condors frequently fly. These birds are the second biggest in the world, after the albatross, and have wingspans of three metres across.

We spent forty minutes waiting patiently for one to appear, during which time I bought myself a hat from one of the local women:

Just as we were about to get back on the bus, a condor appeared and swooped low in front of us. It was a special sight, seeing this enormous bird silently gliding through the enormous canyon corridor, showing itself off to the massed banks of tourists.

Happy with our luck, we set off for the short journey to the start of the trek.

Our tour guide Luis was a good guy and knew the canyon like the back of his hand. His 95 year-old grandparents still lived - and worked! - in one of the villages that banked the steep mountainside.

He gave us the info on what we could expect from the next three days - namely a lot of walking - and we began.

The sun was beating down as we descended one side of the canyon. The views were awesome as we negotiated the shingly path downwards:

Walking downhill is actually tougher than it first appears. Constantly stopping yourself from slipping down the mountain on the shingle, 33-year-old knees buckling under the pressure and toes squashed at the front of trainers is hard going.

So when we reached the bridge at the bottom of the canyon, following a two-hour descent, there was relief all round. A short uphill walk the other side took us to our lunch spot, where we ate alpaca (similar to llama) and drunk energy-boosting Coke.

After lunch, the four of us set off again - while the other tour groups we'd been walking with stayed put for the night. Our destination was the next village, and Luis's uncle's hostal.

After a steep final ascent we arrived at the hostal Danilo:

Editors needed in Colca Canyon. Apply within.

We had a few hours of playing with Kevin - the son of the owner and a big fan of repeatedly punching English people - as we overlooked the green valley below.

At one point, a group of 30 Icelandic walkers turned up in the village. Luckily they decided to stay next door, and our tranquil little home for the night remained just that. James and Sarah had a room to themselves, and I had a five-bed dorm to myself with amazing views as I woke in the morning:

Day Two was a good day. A short walk to the neighbouring village found us at a one-room museum, created and run by Luis's cousin Vanessa. It was a interesting little tour through the way of life of the local people, from the way they make food, to the animals they have and the clothes they wear.

A few stuffed animals, like this chap...

...and a picture of me wearing a lampshade traditional hat, alongside Vanessa...

...completed the tour. Good stuff.

We then had an hour's descent to a place called San Galle, a small 'oasis' at the bottom of the canyon where tour groups come to stay the night, swim in the heavenly pools and eat by candlelight:

It was the perfect spot, and we had a few well-deserved drinks with the various other groups and individuals staying there.

After a few hours sleep in a hut, we rose at 4.30am and started the most difficult part of the three day event - the walk back out of the canyon.

The first twenty minutes or so were in the dark. Not the easiest conditions for walking up a steep gravel and mud path, with sheer drops down the mountain just inches from your feet.

But we survived until daybreak and after a brief communal stop, Luis gave us instruction to go at our own pace and he would see us at the top, some three hours later.

Fortunately I was feeling fairly strong that morning and got 'in the zone', as they say. I covered the ground fairly quickly, bend after bend, sweat pouring but legs on auto-pilot as I ascended the 9km up the mountain.

I passed several groups on the way up and finally reached the top as the sun burst through, gasping in the high altitude and with a big sense of achievement. I did the walk in 1hr 45m, for something that is supposed to take 3hr, which felt pretty good.

I got a couple of pics at the top, first on my own:

And then with my fellow tour group of James, Sarah and Luis:

A leg-shaking final walk back to the sleepy town of Canaconde, and breakfast, was our final proper walk of the trek. After scrambled eggs and coffee we had a bit of chill time in Canaconde's main square...

...before heading off on the long journey home.

We stopped at a couple of eye-popping viewpoints on the way, and then had an hour in the hot thermal springs at a place called Chivay. Soaking our weary bodies in 39C water was the perfect way to finish a great three days.

I got chatting to a guy called Tom (Belgian) on the trek and we happened to be staying at the same hostal in Arequipa. We agreed to go out that evening and celebrate a good trek trekked.

Accompanied by Roger (Swiss), we hit the town. After a couple of quiet bars, we stumbled across a live music venue where Peru's answer to Queen were blaring out the hits: Radio GaGa, I Want To Break Free, etc.

They threw in a couple of Nirvana classics and the obligatory Guns N Roses covers. They were fun to watch and it was amusing seeing the local kids shouting out requests during song breaks. One guy was so obsessed in hearing The Cure, I almost felt like paying the band to play one of their songs.

At the bar we met a bunch of locals and they took us next door where we danced some salsa (badly) and drunk copious amounts of pisco:

At 6am the club kicked us out, and we went to another bar down the road. At this stage I'd been up for well over 24 hrs and had drunk my body weight in pisco. Another three hours there - where some of the locals were convinced I was Coldplay singer Chris Martin - and we were again kicked out.

A final couple of hours back at the hostal with our new-found friends, and I finally dropped off at about 11am. A messy, but great night out in Arequipa.

Here's a few more pics, and loads more are on Flickr:

View of the Misti volcano from my hostal in Arequipa

Peru: Arequipa

First of all, a disclaimer. Anything I write below is written under the influence of altitude. I have landed in Cusco and am having a few difficulties with things like breathing, and walking.

I am told a few days at altitude, plus drinking copious amounts of mate (also known as coca tea), sorts you out and your body gets used to it. Fingers crossed, as I am planning a trek to Machu Picchu. An ability to breathe and walk might come in handy.

So, what's been happening since the last post?

First, I arrived in the attractive city of Arequipa following a decent nightbus journey from Ica. This time I went with a company called Oltursa, and it wasn't much different from my other Cruz Del Sur experiences: being video-ed getting on the bus (for security reasons), being shown 3 of the top 5 most forgettable films of all time, losing at bingo.

I headed to a hostal that was recommended to me by someone in Huacachina, and asked to see a room. Before getting to the room, I smelt it. And it wasn't a pleasant smell. I didn't really fancy spending a night in a mould-infected, damp cell - so I said muchas gracias and left.

I looked in my guidebook and saw a recommended hostal on the same road. I went, was met by a welcoming woman and was shown to a massive room with four beds, TV and a private bathroom:

All that for about six quid. As the late, great Jim Bowen once said: 'you can't say fairer than that'.

A quiet stroll in the sun around Arequipa's beautifully preserved streets was suddenly interrupted by thousands of locals whistling, chanting and marching through the city. I had arrived on the Day Of Protests, as the local rag called it:

From a brief chat with a local guy, I understood that these were people from the Arequipa suburbs who were not happy with the government's decision to take away their land. They were understandably angry.

Despite the anger, the protests were good natured and the thousands of cops on duty did nothing but stand and watch.

I made my way through the crowds to the Plaza de Armas, and headed up to a restaurant overlooking the square. There was a guy on one of the balconies hollering into a loudhailer, which was amplified by a microphone, and every word boomed out across the city.

Unfortunately I couldn't understand him, but the people were regularly cheering and chanting. At one stage they played the Peruvian national anthem, which got a muted response. Perhaps a strange thing to play in the circumstances.

It was a really colourful sight, all these different groups from various barrios and villages.

There were the miners, symbolically wearing hardhats, and the rural women in traditional Peruvian dress. All groups had their own banners, and from my position on high it was interesting to see them mobilise (on direction from the group leader) and march in unison - as if they had been practicing for this moment for some time.

In the afternoon I had a job to do: booking a trek to the Colca Canyon for the following day. There must be over a hundred tour agencies in Arequipa, all selling their own variation on the Colca Canyon experience.

My guidebook said 'you get what you pay for' with these agencies, so I soon discounted one that undercut the rest by about 50%.

I got a good feeling for a company called Peru-Suiza and after an informative chat about what I was letting myself in for, I asked to sign up.

As I was putting my details in their book, I looked at the two names above mine - it was James and Sarah, the London couple who I had spent time with in Mancora, Lima and Huacachina. Of all the tour companies I could have chosen...

So the group would just be the three of us, and we were going to set off at 3am the next morning.

With a bit of time to kill, I did the one must-do sightseeing experience of Arequipa - a visit to the monastery.

It's called the 'city within a city' and is exactly that. A former nunnery of small, windy streets and beautifully preserved buildings and bedrooms, where the nuns slept in isolation from the rest of the city.

The colours in the afternoon sun were great - terracotta mixed with bright blue:

It's low season for tourism out here at the moment, and it's great to often have sights like these almost to myself. I walked around for over an hour, including a stop to eat some of the best pieces of carrot cake I've ever had, and barely saw another person.

Here are some more pics from the monastry, and of Arequipa:

Peru: Huacachina

Have you ever hurtled through sand dunes at nearly 50 miles per hour, down near vertical drops and up gravity defying peaks?

No, nor me, until this week.

I hadn't even heard of Huacachina until about a week ago, when Brazilian Lilian told me I should visit it and showed me a picture on her camera of this almost-too-picturesque-to-be-real oasis of water in the desert.

I decided to head south of Lima and go there, as a midway point between the capital and Arequipa. I'm so glad I did.

After a short taxi ride from the bus station at Ica, with a gregarious driver named Eduardo who spent the 15 minute journey telling me all about his sexual conquests with various European girls, I arrived at the Huacachinero hotel where I met English couple James and Sarah (who I'd spent time with in Mancora and Lima).

Huacachina was just a small lake in the 1930s, and then some wise Peruvians decided it would be a good idea to build around the lake. It's now a small, welcoming little village housing a few shops, a few hostals and hotels and some decent restaurants.

You can walk round the lake in 20 minutes, and the village streets in about the same time. Sleepy is probably a good word to describe it:

After a steaming night in the packed 10-bed dorm (featuring one small window for ventilation and a pair of unidentified odious feet) I woke early, headed to reception and upgraded to a private room - the first of my South American trip. Aaaand relax.

The hotel was perfectly designed, with a great pool lying at the foot of an enormous sand dune. Here´s my Judith Chalmers pose:

With a pool like that, it wasn't hard to plan my day. Sit by the pool, occasionally dive in to cool down, occasionally order some iced lemonade, occasionally play with the parrots:

This was another first for me: face-to-face and arm-to-talon contact with the friendliest parrots you're likely to meet (though admittedly you don't meet that many parrots).

They were amazing things. Completely tame, willing to have a chat (as long as the chat consisted of saying 'hola' to each other) and happy to walk up and down your arm, on to your shoulder and generally pass the time of day with you.

The two green ones did have a stunning blue friend, but he was a few marbles short and stayed up in the tree all day squawking to himself.

At 5pm, the real reason for my visit to Huacachina had arrived. It was time to head into the dunes.

Tim and Mindy, a friendly couple from Canada, accompanied me on a 'private' tour in a four-man buggy. Most people go on bigger buggies with bigger groups, but we fancied spending the extra couple of quid to use a zippier version:

Our driver Jesus looked like one of the baddies from The Wire, silver teeth sparkling in the evening sun and a glint in his eye that told you he'd led a full life. Perhaps not all of it in innocence.

But he also had a great smile, was really friendly, and drove like a maniac. Perfect.

We bolted away from the Huacachina lake like shit off a shovel. Apologies for the probably unneccessary use of that phrase, but it was real G-Force-sucking-your-head-back-into-the-headrest speed. Straight away the three of us had massive grins on our faces.

We zoomed through the massive dunes, sometimes tearing across open plains with incredible views of Ica below us, and other times building up speed before ascending steep banks of sand.

And what goes up, must come down. Most of the drops were unseen, but you knew what was coming. Climbing slowly, slowly to a dune peak, with only the yellow sand and blue sky in vision, we crawled over the top and then plunged down the other side, screaming as we went.

I haven't had such fun since an epic rollercoaster session at Thorpe Park in the '90s.

I've put a video on Flickr which doesn't really do it justice, but you'll hopefully get the idea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26607248@N08/5551118615/

After 20 minutes of driving we stopped for the first of three sandboarding slopes that we were going to tackle.

You like the science boffin goggle look?

One by one, Jesus waxed our boards, gave us instructions to keep elbows in and legs out, and sent us on our way. It was exhilarating. Lying less than an inch from the sand and travelling at serious speeds, I wanted each run to last a lot longer than the 5-10 seconds that they did.

Here's another video that Tim took of me heading down the dune: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26607248@N08/5551756196/

Having more fun than the kids in Pat Sharp's Funhouse (and apologies if you don't get the reference, but it's my blog and Pat Sharp's Funhouse has always been the nirvana of fun in my head), we then had another speedy drive over to watch the amazing sunset:

A great final drive back to Huacachina, at one point in the middle of a sandstorm, was the perfect way to end a memorable couple of hours. I could have done it for a couple of days, it was that good.

The same night, the hostel across the road was throwing a party, so me and a couple of Swedish lads went along. It turned a bit boozy, as parties tend to do, and we had a great time mixing with other backpackers and locals.

The problem was that it was 2-for-1 on drinks all night, and when that happens - and the drink of choice is Pisco Sours - then you start wearing silly hats, allowing stars to be stuck on your face, and going swimming at 4am.

You only live once, etc.

So that was Huacachina. A little oasis of fun, relaxation and the best adrenaline rush I've had in a while.

I'm now in Arequipa - more of which in the next post - and am doing a 3-day trek in the Colca Canyon tomorrow. My guidebook says it is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Now that's deep.

Here are some more pics:



Not a bad spot to spend a couple of days

Our wheels

Sunset in Huacachina