Puerto Maldonado to Arequipa & Colca Canyon

Bus from Puerto Maldonado to Arequipa...

Leaving the hostel of Puerto Maldonado.

Bus Terminal of Puerto Maldonado (search for the chickens!).

We will remember that day-night bus (20 hours). The road takes a mountain pass above 4000m. Imagine this in winter (it's winter here), on a bus without heating, during night, wearing just a sweet shirt and a short pant (coming from the tropical Amazone climate). Brrr. It was freezing ice flowers on the windows, inside the bus. From that moment on I carry a cold, but Annelies was better prepared than me and she survived without damage.
The landscape along the road is beautiful. Steppe with semi wild lamas, sheeps, alpagas snow covered mountains on the horizon. Road in excellent shape with few traffic (mainly trucks and busses). We enjoyed the scenery during day time.

on the road (between Juliaca and Arequipa).

Arequipa is the second sized town of Peru. The historical center is whealthier than the other we've seen, but it is also surrounded by huge favelas.
Most tourist visit here the cloister of Santa Catalina and the nearby (sic) Colca Canyon. And so did we.

quick lunch in Arequipa.

Plaza de Armas, the main square of Arequipa.

Santa Catalina is a village in the town. A strange convent, like giant prison where rich families could drop their daughters. Inside the walled "village" the (discident) Domincan nuns had their individual house, with servants and slaves. Each house had multiple rooms, heating, living room, kitchen, bedrooms. It was recently restored and opened to the public. Pope John-Paul II went there to visit the remaining nuns and made it famous.

  

 Santa Catalina Convent.

Fortunately you get a plan of the village with the entrance ticket, as you quickly loose your way in the maze of small streets, stairs, squares, patios. We imagined this environment filled with nuns, slaves, personnel, prisoned for life on a few acres, making the best out of it. The area taken by  the individual kitchens is impressive.  As if eating became the most important activity.

At the right hand side the nun's frontier with the real world.

Locals (Plaza de Armas)

Public writer (Plaza de Armas).

Gringos (Plaza de Armas).

Next day we woke up at 3:00 AM for the trekking in the Colca Canyon. The bus arrived in time. Underway there was a stop for a primitive breakfast and another one to observe the condors on a spot where they often take advantage of a particular thermal stream occurring at sunrise. We were lucky to see multiple condors. Some approached near to us. giant birds with a span exceeding two meters. 
  

Condor flying over the Colca canyon.

                  Colibris  are present too.




The Colca Canyon is deeper than Colorado's famous Grand Canyon (done in 2005), but the Colca trail is somewhat shorter because the midway starting point, there where the slopes are steeper. The landscape is different too: there is some greenery here (communities live in remote villages, far from roads, without any facilities).

6 fanatics, also Annelies and me, and a guide,

dropped by the bus in the middle of nowhere.

Overlooking the canyon our guide showed us the three levels of villages. On the river level, cultivating fruit and vegetables. On an intermediate level corn (mais) and potatoes, on a third level lamas and alpacas The communities are interconnected through donkey paths. They inter-exchange their products without money. Interesting!

Colca canyon as seen from the starting point of the trail.

Map of the trail.

Zoomed on two interconnected communities on the second level

(corn and potatoes).

Local transport on the trail.

The trail (starting in Pampa San Miguel) was horizontal for a while, we crossed some convoys of donkeys, then a steep descent down to the river. A Nepalese bridge (similar to that in Colorado's canyon) allowed us to cross the river. Soon we reached the first community (San Juan de Chuccho) where we took a primitive lunch. Despite protest, after a short siesta we moved on to the second level (Tapay). The only community with a church. A priest comes one a year to celebrates the service. We didn't visit the third level, our day objective was an oasis (Sangalle) deep in the valley where we spent the night after having swum in a basin supplied by an ambient temperature hot water spring and a primitive candlelight dinner in the open air (it was cold despite wearing a coat).

Our first crossing of the Rio Colca.

Next morning another early wakeup (we got used to that, Annelies will not suffer from jet lag for her return to France). A Nepalese bridge over the Rio Colca and a long long long intense climb brought us back to civilization: Cabanaconde (3200m), a poor village with a huge and nice church and an hostel where we had a late breakfast and awaited transportation.

The oasis where we spent the night and the start of the return climb.

End of the three hours climb.  We did it!

End of the trail: many hikers concentrated around the most familiar place

for a late breakfast, awaiting the bus.

The bus made a first stop in a more touristic village and also at a hot water spring. Then the road jumped over a mountain pass at 4910m.

   Tourists, trapped at a bus stop.

Mountain pass at 4910m!

Back in Arequipa, we picked up the laundry, collected money from the ATM (our familiar world is like that), reclaimed our luggage from the hotel storage room, and took a taxi to the bus terminal for the bus to Nasca.

That bus ride was another experience. You will discover that by the next post.

Hasta la vista.




(Click to return to the home page)