The White City and the Canyon of Condors

Peru – Arequipa – El Misti

We started this week flying from Lima to Arequipa. Arequipa lived up to it’s name as the “White City,” as nearly all the buildings are built of white stone called sillar. We spent three nights in Arequipa before setting out for Colca Canyon, famous for it’s condors, for the remainder of the week. Both locations are at high altitude and had clear blue skies and clear, crisp air.

1. Go

Plane – 476 miles. Lima to Arequipa.
Bus – 207 km. We caught the 3AM bus from Arequipa to Cabanaconde. The ride took us over a 16,109 foot pass and into the Colca Valley. The first three hours went by quickly on paved roads, but the last 50 km took around three hours on windy, bumpy dirt roads.
Taxi – 8 km. Airport transfer to hotel.
Foot – 95,000 steps in 7 days (approx. 47 miles)

2. See

We didn’t realize how much we had missed blue skies until we arrived in Arequipa. Sitting at 7,661 feet, the clear skies, crisp air, and bright sun reminded us of Colorado. Due to the history of earthquakes in the area, the buildings are kept to only a few stories. Most buildings are made of sillar, a white stone. The white stone combined with the bright sun makes for a dazzlingly bright city.

Peru – Arequipa

Peru – Arequipa – El Misti

We visited several sights, all of which were well worth our time. The most memorable was the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, founded in 1580 by a rich widow and so large it has street names – 20,000 square meters. We spent a few hours exploring the colorful, colonial Monastery, wandering through living quarters, kitchens, and squares.

Peru – Arequipa – Monasterio Santa Catalina

Peru – Arequipa – Monasterio Santa Catalina – Orange Tree Cloister

Peru – Arequipa – Monasterio Santa Catalina – Kitchen

Peru – Arequipa – Monasterio Santa Catalina

Museo Santuarios Andinos exhibits the mummified remains of a twelve year old girl sacrificed on top of Nevada Ampato around 1450 and the artifacts recovered with her. They call her ‘Juanita, the Ice Maiden.’ Based on her clothing, they believe Juanita was from a high standing Inca family and selected at an early age to be sacrificed to the mountain gods. For the sacrifice, they made the long hike to the top of the mountain where she drank chicha (corn beer) until she was drunk, was wrapped in blankets, hit on the head with a hammer, and buried. The Inca believed they needed to appease their violent gods through sacrifice and the ultimate sacrifice was that of a child. On a lighter note, we learned that Inca’s revered ducks because they could cross between all three worlds (gods, humans, dead) maybe because they saw them flying, walking, and swimming.

Iglesia de Compania is yet another beautiful church that did not allow photos. The dome is intricately painted with flowers and birds. They think the paint used was made with animal fat.

Monasterio de la Recoleta was a surprising find across the Rio Chile from the tourist district in a sketchy neighborhood. The building itself was not terribly spectacular, but the library and the bell tower were unique. The dusty library holds over 20,000 books, some date back to the 1400’s. The bell tower was straight out of a movie with a spiral staircase, huge bells, and an amazing view of the city. The museum also boasts a large collection of amazonian artifacts – mainly stuffed animals – and pre-colonial artifacts including mummified sacrificed remains.

Peru – Arequipa – Mummy at Monasterio de la Recoleta

Peru – Arequipa – Library at Monasterio de la Recoleta

From Arequipa, we took the long and very early bus ride to Cabanaconde in Colca Canyon. Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world – the deepest is it’s neighbor, Cotahausi Canyon. To give some perspective, it’s twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. In addition to being very deep, the canyon is famous for their condors. We stopped at Cruz del Condor on the bus ride to catch a glimpse. The condors like to catch the warm updrafts in the morning at the sun heats up the canyon and glide upwards.

Peru – Colca Canyon – Cruz del Condor

Cabanaconde has very little tourism. There are only a handful of hostels and no restaurants (that we could find). Everyone eats where they sleep. The town itself has less than 3,000 people and sits at 10,784 feet elevation. The local population is fiercely proud of their history and the local women wear traditional clothing. Nearly all the women wear the embroidered hats, and most wear the dress as well. We spent a few days in Cabanaconde, acclimatizing by taking short hikes.

: Peru – Cabanaconde – View of Colca Canyon

: Peru – Cabanaconde – View of town

: Peru – Cabanaconde – Tradition Dress

Our major hike took us from Cabanaconde down to Sangalle, on the canyon floor. The decent was a steep 3,200 feet in 2.5 hours. The path was wide and well used by hikers and pack mules. There are no roads to Sangalle, so everything must be brought in on this trail. In contrast to the canyon above, Sangalle was lush with palm trees and flowers. We spent the afternoon swimming in the pool and reading in hammocks.

Peru – Cabanaconde – View of the trail down to Sangalle, starts at top right and goes to bottom left

Peru – Sangalle Oasis

We woke early the next morning to start the grueling climb back to Cabanaconde. Surprisingly, it took us about the same amount of time to go up as it did to go down. It was so steep it was like climbing stairs for 2.5 hours… 320 flights of stairs.

3. Eat

Arequipa has a bit of a foodie culture, so we tried to take advantage of it by stuffing our faces every chance we got. We tried a lot of new food including alpaca and guinea pig (called cuy). Alpaca is common at most restaurants, while cuy is typically reserved for special occasions. Both were delicious!

Peru – Arequipa – Cuy

4. Drink

Since we were at high altitude this whole week, all of our hostels offered tea made with coca leaves. They say it helps with altitude sickness, which we found to be true. It also tastes somewhat like green tea, so it’s easy to drink.

5. Sleep

We have been pleasantly surprised by all of our hostels this week. We started off the week staying in a slightly pricier (and much nicer) hostel in Arequipa. With it’s white walls and lush courtyard, you could be fooled into thinking you were in Santorini, Greece. In Cabanaconde, we stayed at the spirited Pachamama House. They had comfortable beds, a great staff, and delicious food. Our bungalow in Sangalle was a true oasis in a otherwise barren canyon. It was lush and green with a swimming pool.

Peru – Arequipa – Hostal Solar

Peru – Sangalle – Oasis

6. Move

Although we still got in a lot of steps with week, we did not get to workout as much as we hoped. We were both slowed down by the elevation and a cold we both developed as we were leaving Lima. We didn’t want to push it too much since we have our long trek planned for next week and we’d like to be healthy by then.

Check out Pat’s CADENCE Week 2 post for details about this week.

7. Etcetera

The people of Colca Canyon (and Peru in general) have been so friendly and helpful despite our language barriers. All the hostel employees are beyond helpful, providing us with lunch recommendations and sightseeing routes. In Cabanaconde, if we started walking toward a viewpoint, but took a wrong turn, fieldworkers would start yelling “Mirador” and pointing the right direction. While hiking, Pat met a young man collecting cactus fruit who – with no prompting – insisted on showing him the fastest way down the mountain back to town.

This is also true for the dogs of Cabanaconde! We went on a short hike our first afternoon and were joined by a little dog who stayed within ten feet of us the entire time and chased flies. We named her Benjilina, because she looked just like Benji. The hostel employees said that this is a common occurrence, so we didn’t worry when another dog joined us for our overnight hike into the canyon. He guided us down the canyon and slept under our hammocks as we read. During the night he slept right outside our door and was at our heels again in the morning. We named him Barnacle.