y-es travel chapter: Colca Canyon and Condors

We've just returned from a too-short visit to Colca Canyon -- reputed to be the deepest canyon in the world, twice as deep as the Grand -- where we watched Andean condors soaring the thermals. The canyon's about 100 miles NW of Arequipa, a 4 hour bus ride.

The first part of our trip was along paved roads, through the Vicuna National Reserve. Peru has 4 native camelids (of the camel family) including -- in order of reverence, importance, size - small to large, seeming grace and mood, and value of the wool -- vicuna, guanac, alpaca and llama. All very cute, with big eyes, intelligent faces. The vicuna is on the Peruvian flag, and it is a fully protected creature (much like the Incas reserved it for royal use only). While the reserve is set aside for them, other camelids can be seen here as well, but the vicunas stay to themselves. It's wild, its fur can only be shorn every 3 years, and it's done by the government in an annual roundup. So here, a few photos from the reserve:

Vicuna dude, watching his harem.

His harem, coming along.

A mixed group of alpacas, llamas and sheep in a lovely, inviting watery highland area, surrounded by aridity. We were told that the alpacas and llamas will inter-breed, with the offspring generally having a longer llama face but a smaller alpaca body, but that (according to our guide) subsequent generations tend to revert to llama or alpaca body shapes (does this make sense?).


This week old alpaca we met at a rest stop was abandoned by its mom.	He made endearing little "mmmm?" noises.

A flock of alpacas, with their tending family in the highlands.

Andean geese. They graze on the grasses in the highlands.

Then the bus trip took to the more familiar bumpy, rutted gravel roads roads in the mountains. One bit of excitement was a fully unlit, very dusty long tunnel. But, as always, the views and destination were worth it.

The Colca Canyon area is known for its heavy use of terrace farming. The terraces are pre-Incan. The Incans were pretty clever in adopting aspects of their conquered cultures, and this included the adaptation and embrace of agricultural and decorative terraces, utilizing native engineering for more of the same -- they "invited" the best of the local engineers and put their knowledge and skills to use in building their new cities - Cusco, Machu Picchu and others. BUT, these pre-Incan terraces remain in these areas, and are still in use.

The pre-Incan architect would often draw/etch his terrace plans on a rock overlooking the planned terraces. Here's one such, with a view of the accomplished plan below.

The pre-Incan folks also buried their special dead high on canyon walls, in little bricked-in tombs, with the bodies in a fetal position, as was the custom, to ready them for rebirth into the next world. Tombs below.

Looking like wasps nests, these tombs are plastered to the walls.

And while the Andean condors were the focus of the trip, they were an awe inspiring second to the agricultural awareness. The Andean condor is bigger than the California, also endangered, is considered to be the largest flying land bird, with an average weight of 25 lbs, with adults males reaching 33 lbs., and wingspans that can exceed 10 feet. They need to soar on thermals because they're really big. Their claws aren't much for killing or tearing apart, so carion is their preference. We watched several soaring -- mostly below us, because the canyon's so deep (4000m here) -- but occasionally at eye level or above us. One adult male and juvenile soared nearby, overhead several times. Sigh. Grande! Magnifico!