A popular place to visit from Arequipa is the Colca Canyon - the world's deepest canyon according to the locals - and a good spot to see condors fly! So off I went on a two day tour to this region. The tour was very excellent and our guide, Yrene, did an excellent job explaining everything in both Spanish and English. This was great, because this was free Spanish lessons on top of the tour!
Anyway, back to the Colca tour: we there is quite a bit of traveling involved from Arequipa, but the landscape is great and Yrene explained us a lot about all the differences between Viguñas, Llamas and Alpacas - who were all well represented along our journey.
In the afternoon of the first day we went for a nice walk to see the views and the agricultural terraces, which the farmers have been using even since pre-Inka times. The walk was followed by a visit to the local thermal bath (very nice and warm!) and then by dinner with a some folkloric dances and music.
The next morning we did set off early to travel into the Colca Canyon - all the way to the Condor's view point. Needless to say, that this again was a point where many, many tourists were gathered - all hoping for some condors to fly. And fly they did! We did get to see 5 - 3 of them quite far up in the air, and especially one did fly pretty close. In that moment I got to appreciate how big they are - and they are! Next to the Condor we did get to see giant Hummingbirds fly - they as well were lovely to watch.
After our morning watching the condors, it was time to travel all the way back. I enjoyed the tour, but was disappointed that the way home was the reverse of the way there. And the canyon is maybe very deep, but as we were all a long traveling at it's top we had no way of really appreciating that it is a canyon and how deep it really is.
PS: the dot on one of the pictures - it is not dirt, it is, yes it is a condor....!
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