COLCA CANYON: where el Condor pasa (sometimes)

Current location:  click here

The bus picked me from the hotel at around 8am, drove passed the airport and took the road towards Puno. Chivay, our today's destination is the main entrance point to the Colca Canyon.

The road crosses the Salinas and Aguada Blanca National Reserve, a protected area where the Vicuña population is now growing.
 

Chivay is located at 3.600 meters abose the sea level. It is a small town in the middle of a volcanic area with several hot springs. We visited the ones close to Yanque.

 

After a nice bath we returned to Chivay and went to a local restaurant for dinner with life music and a presentation of the local dances. It was fun.

 

We started at 6am the next morning and drove to a place called Cruz del Condor, on the road to Cabanaconde. Wereached Cruz del Condor around 8:30 and stayed there for about 2 hours waiting for the Condors to leave their nests. We were warned that the best time of the year for Condor watching is in winter (Jun-Sep), but nobody wanted to leave the canyon without having seen them.

It pays to look in other directions and not just to the sky while waiting for the big birds to show up. This is an example why:

The two days tour came then to an end. It was nice meeting Dan and Sayo from Nagoya, Xavier and Eloide from Paris, Orly from San Diego and all others.