- Where
- Caylloma Province, Arequipa Region
southern Peru - Coordinates
- 15.61° S
71.90° W - Depth
- About 3,270 m (Wikipedia)
more than 3,400 m (UNESCO geopark) - Length
- About 70 km
(Wikipedia) - From Arequipa
- Chivay 151 km, about 3 hours
(PromPerú) - Visitor ticket
- Boleto Turístico
(Autocolca) - Advisory
- Peru Level 2
A long climb on a cold road past grazing llamas to a pass ringed with snow peaks, one of them smoking. Beyond it, a valley stepped with stone terraces from the river almost to the sky. At first light on the rim of the gorge, enormous black birds came up past my feet without moving a feather. I stood up very straight, as one does for important company.
The short answer
Colca Canyon is the canyon of the Colca River in the Arequipa Region of southern Peru, about 160 km north-west of the city of Arequipa. Wikipedia gives it as about 70 km long and about 3,270 metres deep, one of the deepest canyons in the world; the UNESCO Global Geopark that includes it puts its depth at more than 3,400 metres. Which canyon in the region is deepest depends on how depth is measured: Wikipedia gives the neighbouring Cotahuasi canyon as about 3,354 metres, measured from the river to a mountain peak beside it, which is deeper than Wikipedia’s own figure for the Colca and shallower than the geopark’s. Chivay is the main town, at the middle of the valley, and Cabanaconde lies about 56 km downstream. The valley was home to the Collagua and Cabana peoples, Wikipedia says, and their descendants still farm the pre-Inca stepped terraces, the andenes, that climb its sides. Visitors come for those terraces, for the villages and their colonial churches, and above all for the Andean condors at the Cruz del Cóndor lookout.
Why it's worth knowing
The condors are the reason most people come. PromPerú, Peru’s tourism board, describes the Cruz del Cóndor lookout as world-famous for views of Andean condors as the air warms in the morning, and Wikipedia gives the canyon floor there as 1,200 metres below the rim. The birds ride the rising air up the canyon wall, past the people standing at the top. It is a daily event in good weather, not a guaranteed one.
Two peoples of the valley told the Spanish they had shaped themselves after mountains. On a January morning in 1586, at Yanque in the Colca, leaders of the Collaguas and the Cavanas described their origins and customs to Spanish officials, and a scribe wrote down what they said about their children’s heads. The Collaguas, by that account, “molded the heads of their newborns to lengthen and narrow them as high and elongated as they could so that in remembrance the head would have the form of the volcano from which they came”, the snow-capped peak Collaguata, which they venerated as their origin place. The Cavanas bound their children’s heads to make them “flat and wide.” Matthew Velasco, an anthropologist at Cornell University who studies head shaping in the region, argues that reducing head shape to a simple badge of ethnic identity was itself a colonial invention, one that masked how varied the practice was.
The field notes
Terraces from the river to the sky
The terraces are the valley’s other landscape. PromPerú describes trails winding through ancient agricultural terraces built by the Collaguas and the Cabanas, alongside the river, and Wikipedia records that the valley’s people continue to cultivate them. The Colca’s villages, Chivay, Yanque, Coporaque, Maca, Cabanaconde and others, are the districts of the tourist circuit that Autocolca, the authority responsible for it, administers.
A smoking neighbour
From the Patapampa pass on the road in, at about 4,800 metres by PromPerú’s figure, the skyline includes Sabancaya, an active volcano about 30 km south-west of Chivay by Wikipedia’s account. It has erupted ash since 6 November 2016. The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, reporting the observations of the Instituto Geofísico del Perú, recorded the alert at Orange, the third level of four, in its report for 8–14 January 2026, with the public warned to stay more than 12 km from the summit; Peruvian media carrying the institute’s weekly reports still gave it as Orange at the start of June 2026, and the institute’s warnings, carried by Peruvian media, name Chivay, Coporaque, Yanque, Achoma and Ichupampa among the districts its ash drifts over. The wider landscape belongs to the Colca y Volcanes de Andagua UNESCO Global Geopark, which UNESCO describes as volcanic country with some 25 volcanic cones, lava domes and lava flows in the Valley of Andagua.
Hot springs and a ticket
The La Calera hot springs are at Chivay, Wikipedia records. The whole circuit, the Colca with the Salinas and Aguada Blanca reserve and the Valley of the Volcanoes, is covered by a single tourist ticket, the Boleto Turístico, sold by Autocolca at its interpretation centre and checkpoint in Chivay from 5 in the morning to 6 in the evening and online.
Terraced fields across the Colca valley, still farmed by the descendants of the Collagua and Cabana peoples.
Photograph: Ivan Mlinaric · Colca valley fields panorama · CC BY 2.0 · cropped
The Colca river cutting down through the terraces.
Photograph: Nad Hemnani · CC0
Curved dry-stone terrace walls at Chivay, with a snow peak on the skyline.
Photograph: LFReuter · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
The Colca valley in the dry season, its slopes stepped with terraces from the river upward.
Photograph: Pierre André Leclercq · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
An Andean condor gliding past the canyon wall, riding the air that rises as the morning warms.
Photograph: Loïc Mermilliod · CC0 · cropped
- Spend a few slow days lower down before you go up, and climb every village staircase as if you were very old and very wise.
- Get to the rim before the sun has warmed the air, then keep still and leave the birds to come up to you.
- Walk the paths between the terraces and wave to whoever is working them. Stay off the fields themselves, which are busy feeding a family.
- Sit in the hot springs at the end of the day, when your legs have earned it.
- Buy something grown on the terraces, and eat it where you can see the field it came from.
Tried to fit the gorge onto one page. The top is on one page, the bottom on the next, and the river has gone into the binding.
A terrace wall. One of the dry-stone walls that hold up the andenes, the stepped fields that climb the sides of the Colca valley from the river towards the rim. Each wall holds back a level strip of earth a few paces wide; above it and below it are more, row after row, built by the valley’s peoples before the Inca and still farmed by their descendants. Each stone was set by hand, and the wall is still doing the job it was built for.
Tally, in the marginComing down I talked of nothing but the birds, and it was evening before I thought to mention the man below the rim, setting one fallen stone back onto his terrace wall. He was the better sight, and the birds would agree.
Getting there
How to get there. Fly or take a bus to Arequipa. PromPerú gives Arequipa to Chivay as 151 km, about three hours by bus or car, and Chivay to the Cruz del Cóndor lookout as 42 km, about an hour. The road crosses the Patapampa pass at about 4,800 metres. Tours from Arequipa include two-day trips with a night in the valley, which Y tú qué planes, PromPerú’s domestic travel site, lists.
When to go. Be at Cruz del Cóndor in the morning, when PromPerú says the condors fly as the air warms. A night in Chivay or Cabanaconde makes the early start possible.
What to arrange ahead. The Boleto Turístico (buy it online or at the Chivay checkpoint), a bed in the valley, and a few days at Arequipa’s lower altitude before you cross the pass.
Safety. The State Department has Peru at Level 2, exercise increased caution, for crime, unrest, kidnapping and terrorism (advisory dated 4 September 2026). Its Do Not Travel areas are the Colombia–Peru border in Loreto, the VRAEM valleys, and the cities of Abancay, Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Huancayo; the Arequipa Region is in none. It warns that criminal groups sometimes set up roadblocks to rob people outside Lima, that demonstrations can close roads without warning, and that U.S. travellers should not use coca products, often offered for altitude, because they are a controlled substance. Travel by day with a recognised operator. Check the Instituto Geofísico del Perú’s bulletins on Sabancaya before you go, and take the altitude seriously.
Mark this place
Common questions
How deep is Colca Canyon?
Colca Canyon in southern Peru is about 3,270 metres deep by Wikipedia’s figure; the Colca y Volcanes de Andagua UNESCO Global Geopark puts it at more than 3,400 metres. At the Cruz del Cóndor lookout the canyon floor is about 1,200 metres below the rim. Wikipedia gives the nearby Cotahuasi canyon as about 3,354 metres deep.
Is Colca Canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon?
Yes. Colca Canyon in Peru is about 3,270 metres deep by Wikipedia’s figure, and the UNESCO geopark that includes it describes it as more than 3,400 metres deep and about twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Where can you see condors in Colca Canyon?
Andean condors are watched from the Cruz del Cóndor lookout in Colca Canyon, Peru, 42 km from Chivay. PromPerú, Peru’s tourism board, says the condors fly there in the morning as the air warms; the canyon floor below the lookout is about 1,200 metres down.
Who built the terraces in the Colca Valley?
The terraces, or andenes, of the Colca Valley in southern Peru are pre-Inca, built by the valley’s Collagua and Cabana peoples, according to Wikipedia and PromPerú. Their descendants still farm them.
Why did the Collaguas shape their heads?
In 1586 leaders of the Collaguas of Peru’s Colca Valley told Spanish officials that they shaped their newborns’ heads to be tall and narrow like Collaguata, the volcano they regarded as their place of origin, while the neighbouring Cavanas bound heads to be flat and wide. The Cornell anthropologist Matthew Velasco argues that treating head shape as a simple ethnic badge was a colonial simplification.
How do you get to Colca Canyon from Arequipa?
Colca Canyon is reached by road from Arequipa, Peru: PromPerú gives 151 km, about three hours, to Chivay, and a further 42 km, about an hour, to the Cruz del Cóndor lookout. The road crosses the Patapampa pass at about 4,800 metres.
Do you need a ticket to visit Colca Canyon?
Yes. Visitors to Colca Canyon in Peru need the Boleto Turístico, the tourist ticket administered by Autocolca, which also covers the Salinas and Aguada Blanca reserve and the Valley of the Volcanoes. It is sold online and at the Chivay checkpoint, open from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
Is Colca Canyon safe to visit?
The U.S. State Department has Peru at Level 2, exercise increased caution (4 September 2026); the Arequipa Region, which includes Colca Canyon, is outside its Do Not Travel areas. It warns of roadblock robberies outside Lima and road-closing protests. The nearby Sabancaya volcano was at Orange alert in 2026 reports, with people told to stay 12 km from the summit, and the road crosses a pass at about 4,800 metres.