Another trek; this one in the Colca Canyon, which is (apparently) twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. A group of twelve people from all over Europe: Switzerland, France, Lithuania, Holland and Ireland (plus Wales of course), a guide and a driver on a three day adventure together...
For most of the journey to the canyon the landscape was incredibly barren, with desert stretching between mountains and volcanoes. On route, we hung out in a "rock forest" (big, weird rock formations in the middle of the desert) and saw strange high altitude plants which are as hard as rock. We visited villages and saw little kids waving placards with their striking teachers. We learned the differences between llama (bigger, longer neck, tail up) and alpaca (smaller, shorter neck, tail down, woolly face) and that only the males have coloured wool threaded through their ears, the more wool - the more important - like llama bling! We failed to get excited at the sight of condors (birds - yawn!) but did get excited about seeing little chinchilla / rabbit things (cute, fluffy and cuddly!), of course Ben didn't get a picture of either, they're too fast (or he's too slow)!
The valley that narrows to become Colca Canyon is green and farmed, with animals grazing in it, a relief after so much desert. No-one (not even wikipedia!) seems to know the difference between a canyon and a gorge, but it was deep and steep and there was a river at the bottom. It looked pretty far down - and it was! We spent the first night in a hotel in a village at the top, and the following morning walked down into the canyon. It was dusty, steep, slippery and hot and took about three hours to reach the bottom. Fortunately mules carried most of out stuff and we were greeted by an "oasis", complete with flowers, palms and swimming pools, where we camped for the night. (Although it wasn't quite as luxurious as it first appeared with dodgy toilets, tents that didn't zip up and midges but I'm keeping the focus on the positive!)
There was great debate over dinner as to whether the group should get up at three am to climb back out of the canyon, in the dark, to look for more (boring, boring) condors or have a lie-in until six (when the hell did six am become a lie-in?!) and fortunately good sense prevailed! So after our "lie-in" we climbed back up the canyon side (a thousand metres - that's a kilometer - straight up - higher than Snowdon - from sea level!!!!!) and I'm pleased to say that I didn't even require the services of the "emergency mule"!
After lunch (where we were entertained by an ever-present panpipe player - Ben's personal favourite) we had a dip in a hot spring. A bit weird in the blazing sunshine (once again... rainy season?!) but good for the aching joints. Then we headed back, with a stop to see hawks (I think? Some sort of big birds anyway!) that even Ben could manage to photograph as they were tied to their keepers!
Ben:
There are more photos here!
3 comments:
How come Benj got animals to stay still for long enough to take a picture - were they stuffed?! ;o) xxx
Did yourself and Ben really take all those photos......they are fantastic, you definatley seem to be having a ball and travelling like a pro xxx
Does Benj's vocabularly extend beyond "There are more photos here"? Take a gander at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page if you're struggling Big Boy.
Those of us on the late shift could really could do without you going all coy on us, Ben. I mean, Heather's hardly likely to give a perv's report on Peruvian chicks, is she? I've heard ... hmm, probably best if I don't finish my train of thought here.
Post a Comment