Colca Canyon

CanyonsArequipa,Peru

A Peruvian gorge twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, terraced for a thousand years, where condors rise past the rim at eye level.

September·Peaking now

May–Sep

The dry season brings crystalline mornings and the year's most reliable condor watching at Cruz del Cóndor, while firm trails carry treks down to the Sangalle oasis. Dawns are near freezing at the canyon rim, and midday warms fast.

Year-round The terraced canyon is here year-round. Giant Andean condors ride the mid-morning thermals at Cruz del Cóndor. May to September is the clearest time.

Colca Canyon cuts more than twice as deep as Arizona's Grand Canyon, its walls dropping some 3,270 metres to a distant thread of river in the far south of Peru. The Colca River carved this gorge over millions of years through a plateau of worn volcanoes, and only neighbouring Cotahuasi runs deeper — the two Peruvian canyons rank first and second in the world. Yet what sets Colca apart from an empty chasm is that people still farm its slopes. Stone terraces called andenes, first cut by the pre-Inca Collagua and Cabana more than a thousand years ago, still climb the valley walls in green steps, worked today for maize, potatoes and quinoa. The upper villages remain home to those two Andean peoples, whose women you can tell apart at a glance by their hats. The canyon's most famous moment comes at Cruz del Cóndor, a rim viewpoint where the floor falls more than 1,250 metres beneath your feet. Through the middle of the morning giant Andean condors lift out of the depths on the day's first thermals, circling up past the railing at eye level without a single beat of their vast wings. They hang almost motionless on the rising air while the gorge opens silently below. Beyond the viewpoint, two- and three-day treks switchback down to the canyon floor, where the palm-shaded Sangalle oasis and its spring-fed pools wait beside the river. Reaching the rim still means a long climb from Arequipa, 160 kilometres away across the high altiplano, past herds of wild vicuña grazing above 4,000 metres.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come to Cruz del Cóndor between eight and eleven in the morning — condors ride only once the sun has warmed the rock into thermals, and by afternoon the air stills again.
The main platform takes the whole crowd — seven smaller miradors sit along the same rim, linked by short paths, and walking five minutes from the cross empties the view almost completely.
Spend a day acclimatising before you go — the rim sits above 3,000 metres and the drive from Arequipa crosses a pass near 4,900, so altitude sickness is common on day one.
Soak in the thermal springs near Chivay — the volcanic hot pools at La Calera are the classic reward after the long climb out of the canyon, easing sore legs and thin-air fatigue.

Things to do

1
Take the measure of the canyon's depth
From the rim viewpoints the far wall drops away to a distant ribbon of river, more than three kilometres below in places — deep enough that the river looks like a scratch. At Cruz del Cóndor itself the rim stands at 3,780 metres and the water runs more than 1,250 metres beneath it; toward Cerro Bomboya the fall reaches 2,700. Come before sunrise and mist pools in the depths while the high walls shift from grey to gold, the gorge at its quietest in the cold air before the thermals build.
2
Catch the condors rising at Cruz del Cóndor
They come up from underneath, so you watch the empty gorge rather than the sky: the first birds appear below the railing and climb past it. Nothing here is promised. On a grey morning the rock never warms, the lift never builds, and the birds stay low against the far wall. The best mornings ever logged at this viewpoint counted twenty-three and twenty-four birds, both in May.
3
Trek down to the Sangalle oasis
From Cabanaconde the trail drops about 1,100 metres to the canyon floor, two and a half to three and a half hours down; the climb back out takes three to four. Two days means straight down and straight up. Three days threads you instead through San Juan de Chuccho, Cosñirhua and Malata, mud-brick hamlets pinned to the canyon wall, one of them still keeping its colonial church.
4
Follow the water through the terraces
The Colca runs too deep in its own gorge to be tapped, so every terrace on these walls is watered from springs instead: 103 of them, fed down 62 channels into 74 holding tanks. A rotating official the valley calls the Yaku Alcalde keeps the ledger of whose turn it is, and anyone who skips the annual canal-clearing can lose that turn. Walk the hour from Yanque up to the ruined Collagua town of Uyo Uyo and you cross the working channels on the way.

Watch

Nearby

201 km