Day 5 - Colca Canyon


We were up early and off to the Colca Canyon which is famous for Condors and begins further up the Colca Valley from our hotel.  Our luck was in when we spotted a young male just above the road.  He must have found something to scavenge as he soon went down behind a small hillock.


The Canyon is magnificent without condors, but they are the real stars.  The people in the photo were above the ledge where the condors were perched when we arrived.



After watching for about 15 minutes, the condors began to soar.  In the end there were 9 in the air, including the ones we had seen perching and spreading their wings earlier.  It was a truly amazing sight.  When the last one had gone, lots more tourists arrived having missed the main attraction. We walked around the viewpoints to get the best views of the Canyon and the volcanoes Hulca Hulca and active Sabancaya, which had clouds covering the smoke plumes


Then we explored the valley back towards the hotel, first the church at Maca, which is on soft ground right on a fault line.  Not a good place to be if Sabancaya erupts, then the church at Ichupampa on the other side of the canyon, which was damaged in an earthquake.




We set off for the Uyo Uyo ruins but the minibus had to stop because of roadwork, so we went on on foot.  This turned into a very interesting 3 mile walk past people ploughing, up 200m to the ruins and then back across the river to meet the bus at Yanque on other side.

After a buffet lunch in Chivay, which was nothing like as nice as the lunches on the previous two days, we headed over to the market for a bit of present shopping.  While we were in there it started to rain, so we headed back to the hotel.
Later in the afternoon before it went dark, we thoroughly explored the hotel site which in includes a farm, trout ponds, vegetable gardens and a viewpoint over the river.  Sadly there was no dry time for a dip in the hot tub.

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