Along with Machu Picchu, a trip to Colca Canyon is the other must. After our waterfall ‘success’ we decided to go this one alone. With limited info available we hopped aboard our first long distance local bus for a bumpy five-hour joyride taking in spectacular views of rivers, deserts and snow-capped mountains across a dozen different climates. En route we encountered some of the hardiest folk you can imagine, people who live in the below freezing mountain conditions, sometimes without hot water or electricity, and who spend their days walking all day alongside the bus routes carrying goods to sell on board the services as they pass, if the bus stops to pick them up (tourist class conspicuously doesn’t, the agencies promote this more expensive service emphasising that you won’t have to share with local ass’s gets, nice). I´m glad we did, we found our way to a tasty chicken sandwich (with mayo) in this way.
The trip had to begin in a strange one-horse town called Cabanaconde, 5000 feet up, literally stuck in the clouds and the gateway to Colca, home to soaring condors and the second largest canyon on earth. (You’re thinking the Grand Canyon, right? Grand my arse. Nowhere near). From there (having survived the coldest night on record in a hut with no heating) 
we made our way to the bus to take us to the even higher ‘Cruz del Condor’, the condor viewing platform at 6.30am. At 7.30am the bus finally turned up (of course, this was ‘Peru time’, add approximately one hour to most departure times). We were still amongst the first there and the views across the mountainside and rivers were unmatched. The condors were majestic, one Grand Old Duke settled below us on a huge rock for ages. He was enormous but we just couldn’t get the angle to photograph him. It was so so cold up there, funnily enough there was a horde of women with makeshift market stalls waiting to sell us some alpaca gloves.
A couple of hours later we started our descent to the oasis gorge about 1200 feet below. That should read about 1200 steep steps, a sheer drop, railing free, nerve-shattering, muscle-petrifying feet below. It was hard, really hard. We passed a few people coming the other way who reassured us the oasis would be worth it. And a few more whose tired faces and panting lungs suggested it wouldn’t. People had told me that going downhill could be tougher than up, but that didn’t make sense to me. Just over three hours later it did. Yet the tropical oasis (the climate was about 10 degrees warmer down here) was lovely, complete with bamboo huts, swimming pool and cold beer. 
<Phil somehow mustered the energy for a game of volleyball. As the moon came up we sat by candlelight (no electricity) with a thoroughly nice gap year chap of 19 who'd travelled solo for the past year and before that covered the most remote places across the world with his parents. So, that's why …..
We spent the night getting drunk with a couple of thoroughly excellent American women before, well, climbing back up again. 
To put it in context, it took us over four hours to scale the thing (with life-saving bamboo rambling sticks!), making way for passing donkeys, stopping to recover our breath, feeling dumbstruck by the descending local lads carrying all manner of, surely, impossible objects from 12 foot long iron poles to, in one case, a flat pack shed. 
But four hours later the feeling as the rubble walkways began to level out allowing our breath to return to our lungs was up there with the best buzzes you’ve ever had. This changed the game. Suddenly we weren’t just a couple of useless city dwellers with new trainers. We were a couple of useless city dwellers with new trainers who could climb a bloody mountain. Ten minutes after we got back to the hostel, it started hailing, vast billiard balls of ice. God’s applause.
P & A
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trippylatino 