Experience the best of Chivay

Chivay lies at about 3,650 metres on the floor of the Colca Valley, in the Arequipa region of southern Peru, beside the river that carved the Colca Canyon. It is a small market town with a plaza, a craft market and stone streets, where women in embroidered hats and dresses are a common sight. Hot springs a short way outside the town are fed by volcanic water.

The Colca Canyon is among the deepest in the world, and the Cruz del Cóndor lookout, farther along the canyon, is the place to watch Andean condors rise on the morning air. Along the route, villages with colonial churches such as Yanque sit among pre-Inca terraces still farmed today. The road from Arequipa crosses a high pass beneath snow-topped volcanoes.

Alpaca steaks, trout from the mountain streams, quinoa soup and coca tea suit the altitude, and the markets sell woven textiles. The thin air and cold nights call for slow days. The dry season from May to September offers the clearest skies for the canyon, with sun by day and frost by night.