colca canyon, peru, a set on Flickr.
the Colca Canyon is said to be the deepest canyon in the world, from rim to bottom, deeper than the Grand Canyon! We had perfect weather, sunny all the way down...then cloudy and rainy all the way up. We chose to go without a guide or a group this time...just us and our friend Robin, which was awesome and gave us the flexibility we are more acustomed to. Except for some reason we still had to be up to catch the bus at 3am to the trail head! Why oh why must everything start so damn early in this country?
Anyway our trail had us start at the top of the west side rim and head straight down to the river that carved this massive canyon. We climbed back up the east rim through small villages that had seen better days before mining had taken over the area and destroyed the ecosystem. Back down again to the river, through a light rain. The color of the trail changed so many times, from a green grey to bright orange yellow. We crossed the river the Sangalle, the "oasis"...and it truly was, green lawns, flowers, pools carved into rocks. Here we decicded to stay an extra day and get get up super early to tackle the 3,000 meter climb out. We explored the waterfall, collected water, swam in the pool and played games with the kids! They had everything there you could want...aside from hot water, so we hung out and made the climb the next day.
