Exotic and Historic Travel

Peru is a true paradise for avid hikers. Virtually all of the highlands, including valleys, plateaus and ridges are homes to trekking tours of various levels of difficulty. However, some of them have become more commercial tours, but there are many unexplored routes awaiting anyone who wishes to explore the magical ways of the Peruvian Andes, with its extraordinary network of pre-Columbian trails and more than 12,000 lagoons, the deepest canyons on Earth, glaciers and snow-capped peaks, forests and waterfalls, beautiful villages and, above all, the most hospitable people that you can imagine.
El Valle del Cola, or The Valley of Wonders, as Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa called it, offers many trekking tours which boast beautiful scenery. Located 150km north of Arequipa, it consists of a winding network of horseshoe roads that go through the mountains, connecting unusual colonial hamlets of rare beauty. They add a touch of interest to the route, along with pretty lakes, unique rock formations and an abundance of rare wildlife species, such as the condor and vicunas, and the queñual and rodales trees that have stood for hundreds of years. The most impressive attraction on the route would be the snow capped volcanoes, some of them active. Some of these volcanoes include Hualca Hualca (6,025m), Sabancaya (5,976m) and Ampato (6,288m), among others.

Colca was, for time immemorial, home to the Collagua and Cabana ethnic groups, two peoples who descended from the Pucurá of the Altiplano and the Quechua of Cusco, who reached an extraordinary level of development in hydraulic engineering: the spectacular system of agricultural terraces that adorn the steep slopes of the valley is true evidence of the high technical skill achieved by the farmers. Read the rest of this entry »