Canyon del Colpa

Our 3 day trip to Canyon del Colca was another highlight of our journey.
We caught a bus from Arequipa for 3 hours to a small village where we were met by our guide and his wife. They were very ethnic, the people are very different from any we have seen before. Another culture shock— Peru is full of that!!! The regions are very remote from each other and so each community is very unique, this differs from Ecuador which is much more compact and the variations not as extreme. The women of this area wear the loveliest costumes we have seen. The colours are pastel and they have pretty embroidered blouses, voluminous coloured skirts and embroidered wide brimmed hats.
They fed us breakfast where we met our fellow travellers, a couple from Spain and one from England. We set off to hike down into the canyon, this is the second deepest in the world, the other being nearby but more difficult to access. It was a 4 hour downhill descent with awesome valley views with towering walls of a grand scale. We came across the usual local people walking with their mules carrying their enormous loads; they always make us feel inadequate as we huff and puff carrying our small day packs.
The climate here as is the whole area hot and dry with cool nights and we are enjoying the constant sunshine. We got to our overnight village where we were given a rustic bed and the guides cooked us dinner, this was a vast improvement on our Amazon experience, not only do these people generally eat better themselves they have learned to cater for tourists.
The next morning was a 4 hour hike along the river bottom visiting two small villages on the way till we reached the third village known as The Oasis. There is a lovely pool there and we spent the afternoon resting our weary legs lying in the sun and swimming.
We were awoken at 2am to do the 4 hour hike straight back up to the rim of the canyon in the dark so we would be at the top to witness the amazing condors who use the thermals early in the morning to start their hunting. The hike was pleasant; it is extremely steep and in the heat of the day would have been really difficult; we are still at high altitudes. We did in good time as we were all relatively fit and acclimatized to the altitudes.
They fed us breakfast and then we caught a bus to where the Condors are.
By 8am they started flying, it was incredible—they are huge and soared over us for the 2 hours we spent there.
We then caught another bus to Agua Caliente—a hot springs nearby—these are a series of 5 large hot pools which are relatively empty of people so it was totally luxurious to float for an hour.
We then headed back to Arequipa to regroup to go to Puno, our next destination. It is on Lake Titicaca which is the highest largest lake in the world at 12,500 feet above sea level.
Hope all is well with everyone and I will post the pics from this trip as soon as I can