Colca Canyon

At the same time as I booked the ascent of Chachani I decided to book a 3 day trek through the Colca Canyon for the day after I was due to come back. It all seemed so easy, climb Chachani (one of the easiest etc...) come back mid afternoon. Have some food, get a good night´s sleep and then up the next morning to stroll through a nice canyon for a couple of days. Walk in the park.

I already knew that the Colca Canyon was (give or take a meter or two) the deepest canyon in the world, being nearly twice as deep as the "Grand" Canyon, but I expected us to drive to the bottom of it and just saunter along the bottom.

Wrong again.

Day 1: Up 6am. Drive for 6 hours then skid, slide, careen down one side of canyon. 5 hours.
Day 2: Up 5am. Small pancake for breakfast. Cross river at bottom of canyon. Ascend 3 hours in midday heat. Descend 2 hours.
Day 3: Up 3am. No breakfast. Climb, scamper, crawl, sweat, wheeze, curse, haul ass up one vertical kilometer up the other side of canyon. 4 hours.

I came back vowing that was the last excerting thing I was doing before christmas (and probably about 2 kilos lighter). Beautiful place though and when on the final day a pair of Condors flew by only about 10 meters away from us it was just magical.

As the comments book in the travel agency said (which everyone on the trek except me had read before the tour): "Tough but worth it".