March 21 Cañon de Colca day 1

I woke up at 2:30am to get ready for the 3:00 am pick up.  This is my first trekking tour and I am very skeptical about being on a tour and being on someone else´s time schedule.  My concerns, as it would turn out, were well founded.

The bus driver skillfully whipped around curves on the 3.5 hour drive that wound through the mountains to a max elevation of 4900 m (16k feet).  Our first stop was breakfast in the town of Chivay, followed by another hour long drive to Mirador de los Condores.  The scenery was amazing and unlike any other I had seen before.  The 1200 meter deep Cañon de Colca is flanked by Incan terraces carved into the hillslope.  Parts are verdant green, wile the uppermost sections resemble desert in character with prickly pear and other types of cacti.  Along the roadsides, many Inca women were selling there wares or going about their daily chores in full traditional dress.  It was really neat and I wished I could have spent more time admiring the scenery, but we were only allotted 25 min to look at the condores, of which, I saw only one.

Mirador de los condores

Incan Señora sells her wares at a mirador

Cañon de Colca

Next, we broke into groups and descended into the cañon.  I was immediately crabby because my group was going so slowly.  The guide said it would take us 4 hours hiking to descend 1200m and hike up another 150m.  Normally, I would cover this terrain in 1.25 hours.  My patience was challenged.  Equally difficult was the long hours spent in direct sun that could have been avoided by a faster pace.  The guide let me go ahead with directions to wait at the river.  I sped down hill and hid in a little patch of shade to wait 45 mintues for the group to arrive.  It was going to be a long couple of days.

We arrived at the hostel around 2:00 at which point we were fed lunch.  Our guide said goodbye for the day and there was nothing to do except nap or read for the remainder of the day.  I napped.

Our rustic accomodations

At dinner, my roommate, a Peruvian expat living in Germany, felt sick.  He was rather ill prepared for the trip (jeans and heavy sweater, no hat).  He had a headache, then began vomitting, and had below avg temp.  I knew immediately that it was heat exhaustion or heat stroke.  In my naivete, I had assumed that the guide service would have some medical supplies and some training.  They use the same hostels everyday for this tour, but have no supplies or knowledge.  The guide called an ex-girlfriend on his cell who is a nurse.  Great!  I found the whole situation scary.  What if it was me?  I later found out that the patient had taken a 2 hour nap in the sun (while I napped inside) after consuming a beer.  Definitely heat exhaustion.