Take That, Grand Canyon!

Twice as deep as the Grand Canyon... suck it, AZ!

Ugh. Our last truly official touristy act and was it ever a doozie. Turns out that the world’s deepest canyons are in Peru, just about 3 hours outside of Arequipa. So, yeah, we had to go. And unfortunately you have to go with a tour company and, even more unfortunately, you have to leave at 3 am. Why you have to leave at 3 am, we have yet to come up with one logical answer to, but there it was anyhow. So at 2 am we dragged our sorry butts out of bed and took a cab into town where we were to meet the bus at 3. Three-thirty and still no bus. Now, I understand and am very patient with the time system (or lack thereof) down here but somehow it’s not quite so endearing at 3 am when you’re sitting in a cold plaza by yourself, ready to fall over from exhaustion. They finally showed up, which was such a relief as we assumed we could then spend the whole 3 hours sleeping but, no no, we weren’t counting on the blaring Latin music playing the whole way there. It was awesome!


La Cruz del Condor (Cross of the Condor). And
that would be condor, singular.

We finally made it around 8, exhausted as we were. Colca Canyons are twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, although not nearly as expansive and the walls of Colca are far more sloped so it doesn’t give the impression of being as deep, oddly. The canyons were always known to locals, of course, but weren’t discovered by the outside until the 1980s and not opened to visitors until the 1990’s. Turns out that a big draw to the canyons is the condors that live there and can regularly be seen soaring effortlessly in the vast expanse. Except when we’re there, of course. We sat for an hour waiting for them to show and…. a big, fat zero. Defeated, we finally turned to go… and a condor appeared! One lone, solo condor.



Look closely, there it is!THE condor of the hour, literally.

Hard to see but there are lots of the 'levels' of agricultural
farming that the Incas did here, too.

The coolest part of the day, oddly, was when we wandered off with a Dutch couple we'd met this morning into the tiny little town set in the canyons to have lunch. It was one of those places where the locals eat, and you walk in and order "one, please". You don't have to bother asking what they have because you don't choose, you eat whatever they've made that day. This day it was caldo, a broth-based soup with lots of veggies, some pumpkin shell, and a few big, grisly pieces of unidentifiable meat. The restaurant was a true hole-in-the-wall, open air with stray dogs running in and out. The meal for the 4 of us cost 12 soles, or about $4.50US. I love that stuff!

 

So, yes, we spent lots of dough to get up at 2 am and see a big hole in the ground with a bird flying through it. Can’t win ‘em all, eh? But, hey, still beats a day at the office!

We had a great evening, spent simply spending time with the girls at the home. We played UNO, we talked, the girls did my hair and we laughed. The evening redeemed the whole day, hands down.



A local church in one of the communities of people that
still live in the canyon region

 

Not too concerned about oncoming
traffic, obviously