Life Lessons Learnt: Colca Canyon Edition
Be warned, all of these lessons were written as we hiked a ridiculous canyon whose selling point is that it’s twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Now that I’ve successfully completed the trek, and my muscles are no longer twitching in pain, I can look back on our hike with pride. While we were hiking however, everything was a different story, and we began to question why the canyon’s depth should be a selling point.
-Being at altitude feels like being drunk and hungover simultaneously. Not exactly what you would call ideal for hiking.
-Getting to a tourist condor watching spot before the tourists ensures you will both have a great seat as well as be in as many photos as possible.
-Walking through fields on a path instead of the highway is way cooler. Especially when it’s all easy downhill. Be careful though, this may trick you into believing you can do a three day trek down and up and down and up a canyon.
-When given the options of hiking paths, you should take the easy one. We have yet to learn that lesson, though we probably never will.
-Patience is necessary on buses. Especially when your 6:30 am bus leaves at 7:30 am, and then stops to pick up people every 30 seconds.
-People bring goats on buses. Don’t be afraid if you feel something touch your feet.
-When the response to ‘how is your hike going’ is ‘I would lie down and cry but the ground is too hot’, you know it could be going a little better.
-Maps are not always proportional. This can be confusing.
-Stray dogs do not make good guides. They get you lost and then anger the lady and her sheep.
-When playing avoid the cactus, there are no winners, only losers in pain.
-The best way to figure out if you are following the correct path on a hike is to look around and ask yourself these simple questions: Is the path vaguely going opposite of your general direction? Is there a rock wall with cactus growing on top in your way? Are you standing in the middle of a field of sheep or some sort of crop? You want to be able to answer these questions in the negative, because if so you are probably on a path. We only learnt this after the third try (well, almost learnt).
-Every time we trek, it’s terrible. Then we see our destination and the sheer joy of survival, as well as the promise of sleep, causes hiker amnesia, wherein you forget the many, many hours of agony.
-Sitting down means never standing up again post hike.
-I may have tried to marry a duvet in a state of delirium upon completing day one and arriving at a bed. I don’t think it agreed to the marriage. I can’t be sure.
-Cartoon maps are not always detailed or accurate. Sometimes they miss entire bridges. Just go with it.
-I would not want to be a donkey in the mountains. They do a lot of work.
-I would like to be able to teleport. Or at least get to ride on an alpaca. Or a condor, I will also accept a condor.
-Hot springs next to a river at the bottom of a canyon twice the size of the Grand Canyon, with beers and good people is exactly what your body needs after hiking down, up, and down again 1200 m in a day. Most remote hostel ever. Can you spot it?
-Most common complaint after a massive downhill hike (apart from everything hurting): sore toenails.
-The point when you really question your sanity is about 5 hours into your 3 hour hike.
-When someone a quarter of the way up a detour path up the side of a canyon says it’s shit, it will probably only get worse. It may or may not end up being a solid hour of hiking vertically out of the canyon, just to hike back into it.
-When hiking on vertical paths filled with loose rock and wearing your bag, your hands become a second pair of feet.
-Be nice to construction workers. You never know when you will hitch a ride with them instead of hiking the flat two hour section of the path.
-Learn how to say ‘are you single’ in all languages. That way you can catch it when people hit on you.
-Though cold water is better for your muscles and joints than hot water (apparently) it is still way less pleasant.
-Construction work causes falling rock. Falling rock creates detours. Detours are not the normal path for a reason.
-I have yet to figure out which is worse: downhill or uphill.
-Heed the warnings of difficulty level of a trek before deciding to do it anyway.
-People are clearly afraid that hikers like myself will enter their cactus fields. That’s why they surround them with barbed wire fences fortified with more cactus.
-A thin mattress on a rock slab is not comfortable. And is not enhanced by the bugs in the bed.
-Sometimes even basics like tomato sauce and pasta can be made to taste like feet. You can always tell it’s really had when you’re dreading your next bite almost as much as the “3 1/2” hour hike up a canyon wall.
-Always hike before the sun comes up. Not only is it easier, but it gets you to cold beer faster.
-When someone going the opposite direction says the end is close, remember to filter it for your fitness level, and adjust the timing accordingly.
-Refuse to feel guilty over purchasing or eating anything you want. You earned it by hiking in a canyon.
-When a bus is packed 7 people across, the armrests become viable seat options, whether you want them to or not.
-If someone on a bus starts to feel sick, somehow smelling alcohol and a bag will magically appear.
-Realistically, when we say we’re never going to hike again, we’ll be on another trek in a week. Machu Picchu here we come?
