Our first look into the Colca canyon, near Cabanaconde. There are 14 villages in the canyon here, of which you can see two here. They are only reachable on foot or by mule.
On the right you see dried up terraces which are now used as the central football field for the villages, every year they have a competition here with two teams per village - one male, one female. Notice all the paths...
Just a look along the canyon
Another look on the opposite wall of the canyon, you can see three villages here. We would be sleeping in the village on the bottom right.
The previous pictures were made from the top of this canyon wall, from which we descended - you can see the zigzag path left of center.
These are alpacas, one of the four camelid species in South America. Their cousins the llamas are more famous but alpacas have thicker wool.
Me in the bell tower of the church of one of the villages.
Bridge over the Colca in the canyon floor
We spent a few hours by the swimming pools in this oasis on the canyon floor before climbing out
This is our path out of the canyon, I'd climb the 1000m in 1h40
This is Cruz del Condor, the lookout point where condors soar over the tourists' heads most days - but not this one because there was no sun and hence no good thermics.
This and the next pictures are of our bus ride back through the Colca valley from Cabanaconde to Chivay. I thought these landscapes were the most beautiful thing we saw on the whole trip so I wasn't happy just driving through it without stopping. The sky was still overcast and the pics were taking on a shaking bus so they're not too great.
Colca valley between Cabanaconde and Chivay
To get from Chivay back to Arequipa the bus had to climb to 4500m and cross this high plain.
