Colca canyon: 7,8,9

Colca canyon:
If you arrive in Arequipa one thing comes to mind, the incredible height of the mountains and volcanos. Ron and I decided to go for a 3 day hike in colca canyon, which is the 3rd deepest canyon in the world. During the trip we encountered condors, sheep herds, lama’s, alpaca’s, donkeys, hot springs and an oasis. Starting from 3400m we hiked 3 hours down to 2300m were we stayed our first night, living with minimal electricity, no warm water and no internet ofcourse. The experience made us go back to the roots, sleeping while being covered between mountains and stargazing upon one of the clearest skies I have ever seen. The 2nd day we hiked another 4 hours in which we passed several villages, during the hike we were escorted by several dogs who were eager to show us around among the beautiful and dangerous environment, apparently getting in touch with certain plants meant a guaranteed death, good to know during the 2nd day.. 

The 2nd day ended with a nice dive in a natural pool and relaxing music, since the hardest part had yet to come.

The third day we woke up at 4am to get ready for a 3 hour hike with an altitude increase of 1300m, without breakfast. After the first 30 minutes we were free to set our own pace to climb the canyon. Knowing the sun was rising and respiration will only be more difficult the higher you get I deciced to increase the pace, which resulted in a hike of 2 hours in total. At the top a handful other tourists had the same idea.

So what do you do when you have hiked for 11 hours in total and just had the toughest one ever(also the first), you go for a walk;). Since the temperature at the top was below 0 and everybody was sweating we decided to walk for an hour to find some sunlight and more importantly, not die.

An amazing experience that ended with a relaxing hot spring bath and a good meal(which was very necessary after eating the bare minimum for 3 days). 

Note: the track wasn’t very touristic since it requires quite some commitment, take advantage while you can!