At 6am the transfer guy came to pick us up to take us to Chivay. To our surprise it was a normal 50 passenger bus but only 6 passengers were inside, including us. The 6 hours tour took us to beautiful lagoons with flamingos, passes over 4,900 mts above sea level and spectacular views.

We had lunch in the middle of nowhere in a touristic restaurant with the other passengers, an Australian couple, a funny guy from Barcelona and an astrophysicist girl from Turkey. I was so amazed by her studies that I kept asking her questions and because I was so excited I never let her answer them. 

We arrived to a check point which could have destroyed our complete journey, the guide asked for my passport and forgot to get it back, I didn’t freak out (on the outside) but when the transfer to the hotel came to pick us up we went to get it. 

It was the owner of the hotel who came to pick us up and took us for a typical Peruvian food buffet where a baby alpaca stood gracefully in the entrance, his name was Pepe. We didn’t stay in Chivay, we were taken to Calkani (I think) to a beautiful rustic hotel where we just had like an hour rest and were taken to a guided tour along the canyon.

The guide was young but wonderful, he explained how the Inca’s saved their food in built holes that would serve as refrigerators along the river in highland places called Colca’s, hence the name Colca Canyon. 

It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States at 4,160 m depth, and is promoted as the “world’s deepest canyon”, although the canyon’s walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon.

After the shadow caught up with us, it got pretty chilly and only Bernd and the guide jumped into the thermal waters along the river. The rest of the group discussed how cold it was and how crazy it was to get wet, but Bernd had already been in thermal waters at -15C so this was a piece of cake for him. 

After dinner and a long talk with the owner we went to sleep like we haven’t slept in a long time before, amazing.