Trekking in Colca Canyon

Did you know Peru is home to the world's two deepest canyons? The Cotahuasi and Colca Canyons are situated west of Puno and Lake Titicaca and south of Cusco, cutting into the dusty volcanic landscape and providing a great off-the-beaten track experience for intrepid travellers.

I wasn't quite intrepid enough to go to Cotahuasi, which is harder to reach and needs time I didn't quite have, but I did get to Colca. Originally I was going to do an organised tour from the fairly-nearby city of Arequipa, but a few enquiries demonstrated it was going to be tough and expensive as a solo traveller to find the right sort of tour for me, so I ended up going independently.

In the village of Cabanaconde, where the canyon is at its deepest, there's a hostel called Pachamama Home which many independent travellers seem to end up at. They give helpful trekking advice – its website was a good starting point although they encourage you not to trek solo. Nevertheless I booked a couple of nights there in the expectation of either finding trekking companions or the confidence to just go it alone. I figured it'd be easier once I'd spoken to other people and seen the landscape for myself.

I did the journey from Puno on a slightly expensive ($50) tourist bus which had a grand total of seven passengers, and that included a pair of American ladies suffering from altitude sickness who switched to a taxi at the turn-off for the canyon to come to Arequipa, which is lower down. Luckily one of the two other couples on the bus were also going to Cabanaconde, as when we arrived at the bus's terminus in Chivay, some 50km away, the 1pm public bus did not seem to exist. So I shared a cab instead with the Dutch couple who were travelling for a few months after working in New York.

In Cabanaconde it quickly became apparent that trekking the canyon solo, if you're at least moderately sensible and have some trekking experience, is perfectly safe and doable. The tracks are clear and signposted and there are lots of places to stay. The landscape is beautiful in a harsh, unforgiving sort of way and life looks pretty tough out there; especially at this time of year it is dry and dusty and, at between 2,000m and 3,300m above sea level, vegetation remains scarce and heavy on cacti. 

I had one day before heading into the canyon, so like the rest of the hostel, got up early, caught a bus and went to the viewpoint at the Cruz del Condor. This is a crag where a family of Andean condors live and every morning, more or less, some of them come out to glide among the mountains. On the morning I went there were three out; apparently there were 13 the following day (typical) but none the day after that. Condors are incredible birds, enormous and graceful, and they swooped above our heads for quite some time. It was just a shame that the viewpoint has become the stopping point on most tours' itineraries – there were lots and lots of people there. I wanted to confiscate the cameras or phones belonging to the people using flashes.

Back in Cabanaconde it was a beautiful day so I went for a mid-sized day hike up to some pre-Incan ruins and back to stretch my legs before heading into the canyon. Over dinner I had a nice chat with two fellow solo female travellers – one girl my age, who has left her job and bought a tent and is seeing South America through various treks, and a retired American lady who sold everything and is travelling for as long as she can afford on the hunt for something intangible she hasn't yet found. We agreed travelling was good and really anyone can do it. You just need to make the decision and go!

The following morning it was down into the canyon. My destination, Llahuar, was some 1,200m lower than Cabanaconde and the day's walk was mainly downhill. For the first hour it was quite nice downhill but then I had to get out the walking poles as it got steeper and steeper and more technical, with a lot of loose rocks and stones underfoot. Eventually the path zigzagged pretty much straight downhill at gradients of up to -46 per cent and I was extremely glad when I finally reached the river at the bottom of the canyon and had a bit of uphill instead. By the time I reached Llahuar my right knee, the leg I broke badly some 14 years ago, was really pretty sore.

Luckily Llahuar has some hot springs so I went and soaked for an hour and had a good chat with an American couple who'd also come from Cabanaconde that morning – leaving a little later than me. Then I collapsed in the rustic, basic but comfortable bamboo hut that was home for the night until the simple supper. It was a clear night and for the first time I could really see the stars, something we'd missed on the Salkantay trek.

Sangalle

Day two in the canyon was up and then down again to the 'oasis' of Sangalle. The up was made shorter but tougher by a nice old man in one of the little villages who pointed me off the gravel road and on to a short cut – it was shorter, but it was also steeper, and I cursed him for a while before realising how much distance the short cut had slashed! Four hours later, in Sangalle, I stumbled with my knee very sore into the first of the three lodges I came across, negotiated a bed for the night, and had a very similar afternoon to the previous day's – except in Sangalle there are no hot springs, but swimming pools filled with water from the rivers.

A tour group was staying in the same place and they started the next morning much earlier than I'd planned to. But their getting up woke me up and after failing to get back to sleep I just got up and went for the last leg; 4km straight uphill back to Cabanaconde. Ultimately this was the right decision as it meant the path was in shade and the morning light on the canyon walls was stunning. I made good time, catching up the slower end of the tour group and making it back to Pachamama in time for breakfast before the bus onwards to Arequipa.

Tips and tricks

• You can walk the canyon alone but make sure you have some sort of map (hostels like Pachamama provide basic ones), plenty of water and food. The food provided in the lodges is basic, vegetarian and the portions are not massive, so high-calorie stuff is sensible to carry. The terrain is tricky and you're still at fairly high altitude, so take your time, wear decent boots, and walking poles definitely recommended.
• I got a tourist bus with 4M Express from Puno to Chivay for $50 and then a taxi onwards to Cabanaconde for S/. 100 (split between three) – we negotiated down from S/. 120. The Puno-Chivay buses run once a day in each direction, leaving Puno early in the morning and Chivay at about 1pm.
• I went on to Arequipa from Cabanaconde on one of the regular public buses for just S/. 17. Timetables change, check Pachamama's website for details. It took a while – two hours to Chivay, a quick change of vehicle, and then another four hours to Arequipa. There are no facilities. But it's cheap!
• There's a 7am public bus from Cabanaconde to Chivay-Arequipa which will drop you at the Cruz del Condor for S/. 2. It was packed with tourists and locals, but many of the locals got off before the Cruz del Condor. Going back to Cabanaconde there's a bus which arrives between 9am and 9.20am for the same price.