21st April - Visit to Colca Canyon and the Condors

This was a really early start as we were being picked up by the tour company at 3.30am. We were the first people they collected which was a bit annoying as they spent ages looking for a street to get another couple. I have seen no satnavs at all in Peru or Bolivia, but boy do they need them. In all there were around 10 of us in a minivan, a Mercedes, which was a bit of an upgrade on the normal boneshakers we seemed to travel in.
I tried to keep awake but drifted off until we reached the breakfast place around 7.30am. Here we had ham and cheese rolls and a drink made with quinoa which was pretty disgusting - there was tea and coffee to compensate. In the garden to the restaurant there was a baby alpaca. These are usually used by people in costume to earn some money from photographers, but there was no one with him so we all took advantage.




We were in a tiny place called Yanque. I took some pictures up and down the street but there was not a lot going on!



Here is a map so you can plot our progress


From Yanque we travelled to another small place called Maca. Here were craft stalls, obviously why we must have been transported there. I was getting slightly impatient because the condors apparently fly at the viewpoint between 8.00 and 10.00am (I assume they are fed there) and time was getting on. There was a man with an eagle who was sitting it on people's heads for photographs and money.

Eagle on head - what a larf!


What dogs do best

Church at Maca

Boy with two baby alpacas
Finally we were back in the van and on our way to the Cruz del Condor. I had the 70-200mm lens on me and a 1.7 extender which I also used. It was already quite crowded when we got there but Mairi pushed me to the front at a very good vantage point. There must have been around 20 birds in the air.
The Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) has a massive wingspan of up to 3.2m (10.5ft), only bettered by the pelican and the albatross. It can reach a weight of 15kg. It is a surprisingly ugly bird with a face a bit like a turkey. The Colca Canyon is huge. We were not standing by the deepest part but in parts it is deeper than the Grand Canyon. The cliffs are so high that the condors were dwarfed by them, so I did not get the sense of their size. Condors are mainly scavengers of carrion.
I naturally took a large number of photographs, most of which were terrible. Here are some of the better ones.



The juvenile birds are brown in colour whereas the adults have black and white plumage.






The birds do not mate until they are 5 or 6 years old, thereafter they pair for life. One egg is produced every 2 years and the chick does not fly until it is 6 months old. If the egg is lost another one will be laid and their numbers have been raised by taking one egg and incubating it thus doubling the output! They can live for 50 years in the wild and one Andean condor kept in captivity has been reported as reaching the ripe old age of 79.
At 9.55am the birds all just disappeared down the canyon, but we had time to look around. The land is terraced for agriculture and has been like it for the last two thousand years. Our guide told us that they used to manage two crop plantings a year, watered from the snow melt from the volcanos. Now there is not the snow and they can only plant once as the land dries out completely from June to December. There is a small town Pincholla that can be seen from the Cruz del Condor and the Volcano Sepregrina is in the background. Sepregrina is now identified as the source of the Amazon



 


This type of cactus is used for making an alcoholic drink
Sepregrina in the background and the terracing
 

To one side of the road there were a few people selling crafts and one lady peeling the fruits from a prickly pear cactus to eat. Mairi had tried to pick one of these from the cactus but ended up getting a hand full of itchy hairs from it. They are delicious and really moist (once peeled).


The hats that the ladies wear are significant. At one time there were two tribes who both practised skull deformation on infants. The Collaguas elongated the head to make it into a sort of cone shape and the Cabanas flattened the head. The shapes were supposed to respond the the shape of the local volcanos which would have been worshipped. They wore hats corresponding to the head shape. Now head deformation no longer takes place but the traditional hat shape is still used.


We all got back in the van and made our way to Chivay, the main town in this area. Here we went to a restaurant for a buffet lunch which was very good. Mairi had a record number of puddings, mainly fresh fruit salad with evaporated milk! Chivay had a sculpture depicting  Juanita the frozen mummy which was most peculiar. The volcano Ampato, where she was found can plainly be seen from the town.

The church in Chivay

Ampato can be seen through the arch

Statue of Juanita


We went from here down to the river valley floor where we crossed a rope bridge (only one person at a time) to some hot springs on the far side of the river. The water comes out of the ground at 89 degrees C and is cooled to 40 C, but one pool felt a lot warmer than this!.


There was yet more to come in this action packed day. We drove back to Araquipa through Patapampa where the road goes to 4,910m, the highest road in Peru. The ground is stony and covered with cairns built to pray to the mountain gods for safety over the terrain. The sun was blazing down but we had to keep our jumpers on against the altitude.



On the horizon you can see the volcanos of Hualca Hualca, Sabancaya and Ampato (the snowy one on the left)

Panorama of this vista

The road carried on over the Pampas Canahuas which is a reserve for vicunas. These llama type animals cannot be tamed but are kept out in the wild and people go out to shear them (they are shorn once every two years). The proceeds go back to the reserve. Vicuna wool is the most expensive of the South American camelids.



Vicunas grazing

Mixed llamas, alpacas and vicunas


Llama crossing


Storm in the distance
We finally arrived back in Araquipa around 6.00pm. As we were going to leave the next day I went up to the roof terrace of the hostel to take some evening shots of Araquipa with the Volcano Misti.
























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