We’ll pick you up at 3:00am from your hotel in Arequipa and drive 3 hours to Chivay, the capital of the Colca Canyon region. We’ll have breakfast in Chivay before continuing on to Cruz del Condor, one of the best places to view the vast expanse of Colca Canyon and a prime location for condor viewing. After about 40 minutes at Cruz Del Condor, we’ll continue driving for another half hour to Pampas San Miguel where we’ll start our hike.

About 2.5 hours into the trek we’ll cross the bridge at the bottom of the canyon. From here it’s another half hour to the first village, San Juan de Chuccho, where we’ll have lunch and a short break. We’ll continue hiking another 3 hours and pass through the villages of Cosnihua and Malata before arriving at Oasis de Sangalle around 5:30pm where we’ll have dinner and spend the night.

We’ll wake up at 4:50am to start our 3-3.5 hour hike out of the canyon to Cabanaconde. After breakfast in Cabanaconde we’ll have a 2 hour bus ride to the Calera hot springs. The bus will stop at a couple viewpoints for photos along the way. You’ll have about an hour at the thermal baths before we continue to Chivay (10-15 minutes away) for a buffet lunch.

Note: If you do not wish you hike out of the canyon you can hire a mule

Continuing on to Arequipa, we will make a couple more stops — first at the Salinas and Aguaga Blanca National Reserve to see llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas and second at Patapampa Pass (4910 m.s.l.), the highest point on our trip where you can see the chain of volcanoes including Hualcahualca, Sabancalla, and Ampato. We’ll arrive back in Arequipa between 5:30-6pm.

If you are an inexperienced trekker you have the option to take the direct route to Oasis De Sangalle on the first day instead of hiking through the canyon. This is the same trail we use to hike out of the canyon on day 2. This would amount to 3 hours of hiking down on the first day (instead of 6 hours through the canyon) and 3.5 hours hiking up via the same trail on the second day.