Colca Canyon

As you can see Claire is really happy to be in Cabanconde ready for another trek.

Her enthusiasm is compounded by:

- the little grubby girl who threw-up on her on the bus on the way here (twice).

- the 'green-apple-quick-step' from last nights food, and

- the fact we slept in a barn masquerading as a hostel....

so far the 30's haven't been that great!!

... meet the guests in the room next door.

A noisy three-some who alternated between dog barks and donkeys noises (whatever they do).

Claire is extra impressed as she is allergic to donkeys and can't breathe when she has slept with them all night.

The canyon... was massive.

We walked on old Inca trails cut into sheer rock faces down into the river.

We had three German girls in our group ( yes we pick them), and they seemed to be reluctant to use deodorant.  Every step was a breath of unwashed armpits.

Here we are.

Jason, Guide, and the German three.

By now Jason has really had enough of our uninformative guide, and is in full piss take mode.

The English signs in the valley are almost as good as our guides English.

After a night at the Oasis in a bamboo shack that didn't quite have enough bamboo we head up the Canyon to go home.

In order to escape the heat of the sun, we woke at 2.50am and were trekking by 3am.

You can just see the switchbacks of the trial in the background. We had to abandon our German friends who were crying by this stage ( and really smelling) to find our own way out of the canyon.

A few hours later we catch a bus to Cruz del Condor. We were tired and ratty by this stage and almost didn't get off the bus until we saw a huge Condor fly past.

The Condors are awesome.... It is hard to describe but these massive birds were hovering above and beside us less than 10 metres away... while hundreds of tourists used as much film as possible.