Chivay is a sleepy highland town in the southern end of the Colca Canyon, that just happens to be a major staging point for people making the journey up to Cruz del Condor, an ideal location for viewing Andean Condors at close range. It has a nice central plaza, and well patronised thermal baths. Something tells me it’s at its best when the tourists aren’t there.
Beyond Cruz del Condor, the Colca River sinks to a depth twice that of the Colorado in the Grand Canyon, though here in Chivay, the walls are less steep and imposing. When I first read about this canyon, I imagined the Grand Canyon but twice as deep, and I imagined condors like those described in the Biggles book that first drew my attention to this continent. Neither of these imagined states turned out to be true.