Colca Canyon

     Expectations frequently get in the way here in Peru.  Having been raised on national parks in the US, I always expect things to be similar in other places.  When I hear of the Sacred Valley or Colca Canyon my mind's eye sees Utah, Colorado or Arizona:  Wide-open spaces unadulterated with much in the way of human settlement,  just lots of natural beauty.  Peru is not like that.  The dry western slope of the Andes is unpopulated but, other than that, we've only found one area in Peru, between Colca and Juliaca, to be without human settlements, too.  If there is a river coming down out of the Andes, even the dry western slope has people, as do many stretches of the god-forsaken desert between Lima and Paracas.  Anywhere there is water, there are people here.  Sometimes when there is no water there are still people.

     When I hear, "Colca Canyon, at a depth of 10,725 feet, is one of the deepest canyons in the world, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon," I'm expecting a big national park with a plateau cut insanely deeply by a river.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  As you can see from the pictures, it's plenty steep and deep and it is, "a deep gorge, typically one with a river flowing through it," by definition a canyon.  It just didn't meet my expectations.
     Once that feeling was expressed and I starting looking around at what was there, it turned out to be an interesting place, one of Marnie's favorites in all of the parts of Peru we've seen.  While we did visit the Mirador Cruz del Condor for which the canyon is most renown and were able to witness the condors take their morning flight, this spectacle was mundane compared to the landscapes and people we encountered elsewhere.

      The hotel we stayed in (above), the Colca Lodge, was fantastic.  It is situated on a bend in the Colca River with a good view over and up the river.  We had a nice room with a loft for the boys to sleep in.  The lodge also had a llama farm for Sam and a series of large, outdoor natural thermal pools of varying temperatures overlooking the river for all of us.  In addition, the canyon is home to Wari ruins, terraces that are still heavily farmed, colonial churches and communities full of interesting people.

     Our first afternoon there we walked down and across the valley to visit the Wari ruin of Uyo-Uyo.  The Wari culture was ascendant from 500-1000 AD through most of the central sierra and much of the coast.  Although the empire declined after 1000, the cities and towns remained and Uyo-Uyo, still a vibrant community, allied with the Inca after 1300.  The Spaniard Gonzalo Pizarro arrived in 1540 and shortly thereafter burned what would burn of Uyo-Uyo and forcibly moved the populace across the river where it could be more easily controlled and available for forced labor on Spanish landholdings.  What has been excavated is worth seeing.

We crossed this bridge on foot the first day, on the second by horse. Sam's horse wouldn't budge so the horseman had to return to lead him across. Sam, who doesn't usually express fear, was panicked that he would fall over the railing and into the river below. I was, too!

Below the farside of the bridge (above) archaeologists found these burial holes with mummies. On the near side (below) they found granaries stuffed with maize, quinoa and other crops. "Colca" actually refers to these niches built into the cliffs in the canyon.

1500 hundred year old terraces are still intensively farmed

     Every small community in the canyon that dates to the Spanish conquest has a church dating back to the second half of the 1500's since the church was extensively used to pacify the Andean people.  Their appearance is similar to the missions in California.  A Catholic fraternal society in Spain is paying to have them renovated, a good way to preserve history. (A note here:  Peru is awash in sites that need to be excavated and preserved, so much so that there is not enough money to go around.  We recently visited the Wari capital city outside Ayacucho which was home to 50,000 people.  It's only 3% excavated.  A nearby cave was found to have human artifacts dating back 20,000.  Only a 3 meter by 5 meter area has been investigated.)

      We were also lucky enough to be in the area during the Wititi festival, which celebrates the legend of a young man, who disguised himself in a skirt and hat in order to dance near a young woman whose father opposed their relationship. Much to our delight every village we passed was celebrating.  The colors, decorations, dancing, cross-dressing and beer drinking were sights to behold and the bands played with a lot of gusto.

As usual, a few animal and bird pictures.