deepest parts I was just stunned by how far down the river was. The canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon at around 10,500 ft!! The road is not at the top though, but it looked at least as far down as the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon to me, if not more. We passed the Cruz del Condor viewpoint, the highlight of the canyon - one of the deepest parts and one of the best places to see the huge Andean Condors - it looked very busy and we had been told that the best time to visit it is really early in the morning - so we continued on to Cabanacondor, the village at the end of the road.

After Chivay being so great, Cabanacondor itself was a real disappointment. We had looked in the two cheap hotels from Lonely Planet and they were really disgusting places - there was no way we were going to stay there. The hostel there was pretty much outdoor based and would have been freezing, so we ended

up paying far too much for the best hotel in town, which really wasn’t so great either. We decided almost straight away that our planned two night stay would only be one. We’d just get the bus out first thing in the morning to the viewpoint, spend a hour there, come back for our bags and then head off straight back to Arequipa.

We managed to find ourselves a local café for lunch and had a filling, if not too exciting plate of rice and bean stew, and then headed off to one of the local viewpoints on the edge of the canyon. Now this is where Cabanacondor totally redeemed itself. This place was just absolutely stunning!! There was not another soul around, the silence was deafening, and the scenery was enormous!! You could see right the way down to the river a long long way below - we must have sat there for a good couple of hours just mesmerised. We were also treated to the sight of several