Bus Trip to the Colca Cañon

Where we brave the dust and cold to experience vicuñas, alpacas, llamas, native dancing, hot springs, condors, and a very deep cañon.

We spent 2 days 'playing tourist' with a guided bus tour up into the Colca Cañon.

The Colca Cañon is 13,658 feet deep, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. However, the cañon's walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon. The Colca Cañon is also home to the elusive Andean Condo.

This was a true tourist trip, with the old 'herd you off the bus' approach, but we only paid $22 EACH for a 2 day trip INCLUDING our overnight stay in a hotel. We saw a lot in 2 days, and had a good bi-lingual tour guide and good safe bus driver. We booked our tour with Colonia Tours, through our hotel, but others booked it through tour bookers in the square in Arequipa. We saw LOTS of other tour groups on the trip, but not all do the same trip. Though we were not offered a choice of hotel for the overnight stay in Chivay, we understand that you can chose between several hotels at various prices.


The first thing that struck us as we left Arequipa was the stark landscape... Miles and miles and miles of cold, dry scrub landscape, with a backdrop of volcanic mountains.


After a couple of hours winding higher on the typical bad Peruvian roads, we made our first stop at the Pampa Canahuas, a reserve for vicuñas, llamas, alpacas and other indigenous species. Dave got some good pics.

Wild Vicuña


Llamas and Alpacas at a Watering Hole
As we climbed higher, our guide offered us coca leaves to chew, which are supposed to help relieve altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is pretty common among travelers in mountainous Peru. We were cresting at over 15,000 feet and going to stay the night at about 12,000 feet... mild altitude sickness starts at about 8,000 feet and gets worse as you get higher. Mild symptoms are mostly wooziness, headache, and shortness of breath. Coca leaves or coca tea are common Andean solutions to altitude sickness (we were offered the same in Colombia and Chile as well). Chewing coca leaves is more effective if you also chew a little lime (calcium). Our guide thoughtfully provided both. Coca is where cocaine (and novacaine) comes from. After a few minutes of chewing the leaves, my mouth felt like I'd been to the dentist.



Though the temperature in Arequipa was pretty cool, it wasn't bad. But the higher we got on this trip, the colder it got. We saw some ice and snow. And the wind was blowing pretty good.

When we got to our hotel in Chivay, we found that though it was a pretty nice budget hotel, it had no heat at all. The tour plan included an afternoon hike to an adjoining village. Both Dave an I were feeling the cold and the altitude and opted not to go hiking. So we had a couple of hours in the afternoon to kill, in our unheated hotel room. We spent the time napping under 20lbs of blankets. (we must be getting old!).

At 6pm, we loaded up in the bus and went to the 'hot springs'. This is natural volcano-related hot springs. There were a lot of tourists there, so there was no ambiance, but at lease we were warm.

In the evening, we were treated to a group dinner and some very nice Peruvian music and dancing. (About 100 tourists packed into a restaurant).