Big birds: Giant Andean Condors

      Our ticket to Chivay from Arequipa bought the transportation and one night in a hostel in Chivay.  What appealed to us about the trip was the stops we would make to see a couple of the small villages on the south rim, and to The Cross of the Condor, which otherwise would be difficult to get to.  The itinerary included going to a restaurant in Chivay for dinner that featured "a show".  I'm not a fan of tourist shows.  A band of pan pipe and guitar players took the tiny stage in the restaurant about the time I ordered my first drink.  The band was good!  Soon, the dancers appeared.  The young men and women danced and were having a great time entertaining the tourists.  I saw a small child in the back room, waiting for mama to finish each dance, and he would run out and wrap himself around her knees at the end of each dance.  I enjoyed the dancing, but really loved looking at the fabulous embroidered dresses the women were wearing.  These evening dancing and musician jobs keep food on the table at several households, and we were all happy to tip at the end of the evening.

The people of Colca Canyon belong to the Collagua and Cabana cultures.  East end and west end.  Their clothes are very different, and the hats are terrific!  Tourism has increased in the past few years here, but not enough to change the culture of these small villages.  The men and women still wear traditional clothes.



It was very cold that night, and Stuart and I gratefully pulled all three wool blankets over us when we went to sleep.  The next morning, we loaded up at 7am for the drive west on the south rim, stopping at a couple of small villages along the way.  The canyon was getting deeper and more dramatic as we headed west.  We drove on a gravel road along the rim, passing almost no other vehicles, but a few burros and sheep!  This is the only road.  The goal is to get to The Cross of the Condor, a rim overlook, before 9:30.

The giant Andean Condors live almost no where else except in this canyon and the Cotahuisi Canyon, just to the north, which is deeper than the Colca Canyon.  We learned they don't actually fly:  they soar.  With an 11 foot wing-span, they are too big to fly.  Which explains whey they live on the cliffs of the Colca Canyon.  In the morning, about 9am, the air warms enough to create drafts that the birds glide on.  They are vultures, so they feed on the dead cows, llamas and alpacas they find in the canyon.

Going to Cruz el Condor doesn't guarantee a sighting, and we were thrilled to see a condor sunning herself as we walked to the rim!  Soon, another appeared, soaring overhead.  Look!  We sat on the rim for about an hour, watching them swoop and soar, disappearing over one ridge and reappearing a few minutes later.  By the time we left the area, we had seen 12 of the giant birds.








Five of us in the van of 12 people wanted to walk a little along the rim, and our guide walked with us, telling us more about the economy and history of the area.  We learned that the three small villages at the bottom of the canyon grow lots of citrus, all of which is hauled out on the backs of the men in the village.  I heard from other backpackers that the hike to the bottom is a terrific three-day trip.  Agricultural habits have not changed much in the past several hundred years, the economy is still driven by the same engine.  The terracing the Incans began is expanding, and used all through the canyon.

As we walked along the rim, I saw another condor below us! And, look, another!  It was thrilling to see two at a time, and watch them soar and twirl on the drafts.  There is no way the pictures here show the grandness of the giant birds.   Behind them, the sky was turquoise.  It was a good day.








     

On the way back to Chivay, we made several stops to see Incan tombs built in the mountainside above the road; or to see talk about the extensive terracing and the importance of the crops in the canyon area.  We talked about the influence of tourism money, and the slight changes as a result.  At one stop, local women had set up booths selling crafts and food.  I bought a fruit, a fruit from a cactus that was unfamiliar to me.  It was both sweet and tart, with the texture of a kiwi.  See the picture here...

The trip to the Colca Canyon was as memorable as the trip to Machu Pichu, something I'll always remember.