Welcome to the Colca Canyon! This is one of Peru’s most spectacular natural landscapes and one of the top hikes in the country. It is typically regarded as the world’s second or third deepest canyon, apparently because people can’t agree on the definition of a canyon. However, Colca is definitely the deepest canyon in the Americas. Measuring more than three kilometres deep in parts, it’s almost twice as deep as the famous Grand Canyon in the US.
It was formed more than 150 million years ago due to erosion from the Colca River, and humans have inhabited the region for more than 6,000 years. The locals of the region today continue traditional farming practices on the stepped terraces carved into the side of the canyon.
Like most hikes, the difficulty of the Colca Canyon depends on how much hiking you do. If you speak to someone who’s just got back from Patagonia and has essentially evolved hiking poles out of their hands, they’ll tell you they cartwheeled down and jogged back up in time for breakfast, then decided to do it again in the afternoon. If you speak to someone like me, who’s spent the last month devouring exorbitant amounts of chaufa and pisco sours, they’ll tell you that the thousand metre descent on the first day was quite painful on your knees, but getting up at 4:00am for a thousand metre ascent the next day should really be considered torture. (Nah, it wasn’t that bad, and the views definitely made up for the pain.)
All that being said, and taking into consideration that I am a gigantic animal nerd, the highlight of the Colca Canyon was not in fact the incredible scenery. Rather, it was one of its awe-inspiring inhabitants – a creature right at the top of my Peruvian bucket-list.
–
Colca Canyon, Peru