Condor Spotting in Colca Canyon Peru

Just north of Arequipa between Chivay and Cabanaconde, deep in the heart of Peru you will find Colca Canyon. It is said to be the deepest canyon in the world competing with the Tsangpo canyon in Tibet, but every year someone decides that the other is deeper… a bit of a “mine’s bigger” situation, but whatever the case it is certainly impressive.

La Vista is breathtaking - the walls of the canyon are so steep its hard to imagine how they were formed!

There are many things to see and do around the canyon and also along the way up towards the canyon. There are hundreds of agencies around Arequipa to book your tour with, ranging from the two day tour to the 5 day tour. I checked out many different options as I had been dying to see the canyons massive condors for years and I wanted to get a cheap tour that would allow me to spend a bit more time photographing the condors and to explore the canyon at my own pace.

I found the two day tour was rushed and didn’t allow you to walk down into the canyon, the three day tour sounded a little better but still didn’t give us the freedom we were after, so we looked at hiring a car from one of the car hire agencies in Arequipa, also being three people we were able to split the cost, creating our own tour and giving us all the freedom we needed.

If your thinking of getting to the canyon on your own you can catch local busses all the way there but it’s not so easy to get around once your there, so if you’re in a group or manage to find some other travellers I recon hiring a car is the go!

Beauty in flight!

Apart from the amazing canyon itself the biggest draw for visitors is the massive condors that sore right past your head at Cruz del Condor, one of the many lookouts along the canyon. There is a great way to get all the information you need for this trip, and any other trip you might want to do. It’s simply to go into any pricey tour company and asking for a rundown of their tours and to grab one of their recent brochures. Thanks for coming!!

On your way out of Arequipa you drive up into the mountains where you can see some beautiful rock formations, animals, interesting flora and amazing views. We made a lunch stop at Chivay where we indulged ourselves in a local market feed for pocket change, then off to the hot springs ahead of the tourist buses for a relaxing dip.

The drive from Chivay took us along an awesome rally track through dodgy unlit tunnels past breathtaking lookouts and sleepy little towns to Cabanaconde. If you’re like me and you would love to spend some time looking at the magnificent Condors you will need to purchase a ticket for the park at Chivay, you can’t miss the office as they will prompt you as you drive out towards the canyon.

Amanda stands on the precipice of the canyon wall

Some people will claim that you shouldn’t pay as all the proceeds go directly to Chivay and not to the park but I heard otherwise so I thought it best to fork out the fee which allows you to visit everything along the way without getting harassed, and yes we did get harassed by security at the bird viewing area. This is good in my mind, for the protection and preservation of the condors and other wildlife in the area.
When you get to Cabanaconde find yourself some accommodation and relax. Around the main square there are a few places worth checking out. Try and find a hostel with a kitchen if you’re after saving your tastebuds from boredom, you can always find produce and you’ll find that eating out every night in South America can get a little monotonous as the staple tends to vary very little.

After a big breakfast we decided to take the long walk down to the bottom of the canyon. The trek itself is steep and a little slippery, nothing a good pair of shoes and a large bottle of water can’t handle. You can walk to the bottom in approximately 2 ½ hours but with the amazing photo opportunities we managed to take around 3 hours.

The condors swoop so low their sheer size engulfs you!

When you reach the bottom you come across a few mini resort/campgrounds with swimming pools, where you can have a cold drink and a swim for a small fee. We took our own food and drink to avoid any overpriced extra expenses.
There are mules at the bottom willing and able to take you back up to the top for a negotiable price, with the mule’s owner/guides starting at around 50 soles and eventually going down to around 30 soles. We opted for this option not for the sheer fact we were totally wrecked, but it was a lot of fun and a little scary. We decided that we weren’t out to prove anything to anyone so, bring on the mule. Like the Macchu Picchu trek we found that there were plenty of people out to prove something if not simply to say that they had done the walk, but for us it’s simply a matter of realizing that we would prefer to do things with a bit more comfort. 20 years of backpacking has brought me to one conclusion, and that is that I don’t need to prove myself to anyone and mules are great!!!!!

With nothing to prove Amanda rides a mule back to the top of the canyon

The next morning we drove out to Cruz del Condor, a ten minute drive from Cabanaconde and watched the beautiful condors soar meters from us.

If you love the winged variety as much as I, you will be blown away by this amazing experience! We spent a few hours there snapping away then as all the tourists started filling the area we took off in our little freedom car to explore a little more.

There are many other walks to explore in the region some relatively easy and some which would rely on you having all your own cooking and sleeping gear. Trekking out to some very remote mountains where only recently some ruins have been uncovered, believed to be the original ruins Hiram Bingham (the discoverer of Macchu Picchu) was looking for many years before. But that’s for another time……