Cruz del Condor
Last night, Wilmer advised us all that we needed to be away early to stay ahead of the crowds, get some decent time in at the lookout, and then get back to Arequipa by the end of the day. This, combined with yesterday’s miscommunication about departure times, ensured we hurried our breakfast, packed and got checked out early. It was just as well, because the hotel we were staying in was close to a full house with a number of silver nomads (well, not quite nomads, more…sheep Llamas being herded around). The bus arrived, and this time we were the last ones on board. Everyone again had that sleepy look that greeted us yesterday morning, and for a little while at least, we’d retreated into our respective shells.
We bounced out of Chivay and onto the valley road that would take us up to Cruz del Condor, drafting behind the other tour buses, or being drafted. At times it resembled a peloton, as the vehicles switched places with each other, pulling ahead and dropping away. Steadily, the road deteriorated with altitude, in much the same way as the road across from Arequipa had done. We stopped in a number of locations along the way including a small village with a quaint church and intricately carved altar (even the smallest, poorest congregations have beautiful altars), and a vista over the deepening canyon with its terraced fields clinging to the valley walls. It’s been a consistent point of wonderment for me here, how throughout the Andes, farming peasants are able to scratch out an existence on the sides of these mountains on tiny holdings of land.
In places the valley walls became so steep that we ended up in tunnels, the headlights picking up little beyond the swirling dust left behind by the last vehicle to pass through ahead of us. Eventually, the bus came to a stop and we got out at a walking track several hundred metres away from the main lookout, already dotted with swarms of spectators clamouring for a good vantage point.
Most of the group charged ahead, eager to get to the mirador for a glimpse of the birds, but Edgard and I lagged behind a little, and were rewarded. We spotted some large rodent like animals moving about amongst some rocks, but my camera lenses couldn’t zoom enough to get a clear image before they were gone. Whistle-stop tours such as these were clearly not going to be enough to get much in the way of wildlife shots. I’ve read it’s possible to camp close to Cruz del Condor so you can spend the time waiting for the wildlife to “do it’s thing”—maybe on a future visit.
Wilmer pointed down into the valley well below us. We looked in time to see the large wings of the first Condor spread out in a broad fan. This one was young, its feathers still chocolate brown, and from this distance at least, it looked quite similar to our wedge-tailed eagles. For a moment I was awestruck by the size of the bird (despite having seen one in Cusco), and forgot to raise my camera. By the time I had the viewport to my eye, the bird was gone, drifting out of site past a rocky outcrop and out of view.
We stopped on one of the lower viewing platforms and waited. A couple of condors were visible gliding further along the valley but still a distance away. An eagle was a more frequent passer-by, I’m guessing because it was smaller and could glide on weaker thermal drafts than the condors. Normally I’d have been happy enough watching it, but it was upstaged by the much larger neighbours. The adults drifted by from time to time, but seemed to keep their distance. The two younger birds however seemed more curious, drifting low and close over the crowds.
Condors are carrion eaters. From the few non-aviary signs of life we saw, I wouldn’t have thought there’d be sufficient supply of food for even the small family we saw. Then again, the walls of the valley are steep and deep, and I suspect even the most sure-footed animals in this habitat make a mistake from time to time. Still, unlike the eagles we saw hovering on the thermals, the Condors didn’t have the option of diving down to the ground and ambushing some prey. The scrubby vegetation that is smeared along the valley walls would certainly obscure their vision to a large degree, so it amazed me they were able to spot any food down there at all.
On a few occasions, one of the adolescent condors swept in over the walking track, over the lower lookout and up over the main lookout, where dozens of people clambered on daintily poised rocks to get uninterrupted views. It came in over us like a B-29, close enough for us to see the details of its talons and feathers, and moving with grace not suggested by its size. As it moved on over the main lookout, and the viewers there squirmed about to watch its passing, I wondered how many spectators got dislodged from the mountainside each year, and whether or not these birds were intelligent enough to learn tricks for encouraging their food to prepare itself.
We spent well over an hour watching the birds coming past on a repeating cycle, and I managed to fill a memory card and run down my camera batteries. The visits by the Condors diminished as the sun climbed higher, evening out the air temperatures in the canyon and lessening the thermals they used for gliding. The car park began to empty as the early arrivals dispersed, and soon enough, we were all packed into the bus and bouncing back down the canyon to Chivay.
Outside the town, we branched off onto the road we’d descended the day previous, and wound our way back up over the western flank of the Colca Canyon. This time, there were no stops, it was a direct trip back to Arequipa with a view to having us all dropped off well before sunset. We passed the 4900, and later, the museum with the attacking vicuña, and the cafetería and craft stall—both seemingly abandoned in the late afternoon now that the next day’s tourist hordes had already passed through to Chivay.
We made just two stops: one in the dusty hamlet of Cañahuas, where the two Spanish women disembarked to catch a connecting bus through to Puno and Lake Titicaca, and again several kilometres down the road where I asked for an opportunity to shoot the road sign warning of Llamas on the road (a Peruvian version of our Kangaroo, Koala and Wombat signage). There were also signs for Vicuñas, but I missed those ones.
When we eventually rolled back into Arequipa, most people left in the bus were either asleep or very close to it, and we happened to arrive right in the evening peak. The driver took some interesting detours through seemingly abandoned areas of the city to try and bypass the central area so they could drop us first, and then the rest of the passengers as they backtracked to their depot against the flow of traffic.
When we finally got inside Casa Arequipa, we were trapo, perhaps even trapísimo, and promptly went to sleep for a few hours. When we awoke we went to the northern end of the city to eat at a French restaurant. I was a little wary of this given it was a French run restaurant in Huaraz that had given me the gastro I was just recovering from, but it’d been recommended by the hostel staff and they’d served us well to date. We got to wear funny looking large paper bibs (which turned out to protect our clothes from being pattered with fat from the massive steaks we ordered).
It was a night I really didn’t want to end, as tomorrow, we’d be boarding a flight back to Lima, and then preparing for me to return home. Arequipa was one of those cities I found myself instantly connecting with, and I really didn’t want to leave.