Day Trek To The Secret Corner Of Volcan Misti - Arequipa
Trek to Hatun Paqcha Waterfall and the Rock Forest of Puruña is one of our top day trek inside the National Reserve of Aguada Blanca y Salinas in Arequipa – The trek on the Altiplano and through active volcanoes is available for hiker lovers looking for immersion into wild nature.
Enjoy hiking the best Arequipa’s Andean panorama located behind Chachani Mount (6070M) and volcan Misti (5825M) – This spectacular landscape lets you enjoy the wildlife as Vicuñas, Huanacos, Muntain CaraCara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus), Andean Eagles, Andean Condor’s, Andean foxes, La Taruca (Hippocamelus antisensis), Chinchilla, on the way to waterfall and rock formation.
This trek is suitable for everyone and can be combined with trout fishing on Rio Chili (upper zone) – The crystal-clear waters invite you to swim, cliff-jumping or relaxing fishing (river trout). The trek to rock forest and waterfall is available from April to December (dry season). Let’s us to show you the way to the secret corner of Misti volcano.
TREK DESCRPTION
At 6AM the trek begins with picking up from your hotel of Arequipa downtown – We drive for about 2 hours to the northeast of the city following the road to Colca canyon or Puno – The first stop will be in the National reserve of Aguada Blanca and Salinas (4050M) where we find a nice landscape of rock formation as known as Puruña – This is located over Rio Sumbay facing nice panorama around volcan Misti, short walk through the rock formation finding strange human and animals rock silhouettes.
Around 9AM we continue driving on the plateau of the national reserve in the area named Pampas Cañahuas – The road takes us to southwest of Chachani Mount where we can watch many Vicuñas grassing around – Some stops to take spectacular photos of this protected animal, which is represented in the Peruvian flag.
Finally we arrive to the high section of the waterfall where we get out and leave our transportation and begin nice downhill for about 1h30m to the deep of the canyon (300M down) – The downhill path is very sandy, steep and zigzag to the crystal waters of Chili River – To get to the waterfall is necessary to cross the river jumpy over huge rocks and finding the best and safety tricks to reach the base of the waterfall.
Enjoy the amazing view of this canyon, relaxing time to swim in small natural pools or trout fishing and picnic next of the river until 1PM – The waterfall is one of the most nicer in Arequipa and well hidden by Misti volcano with minimum presence of visitors. The way to leave from the canyon takes around 2 hours following the same way we did before – Aboard our jeep and 2 hours drive back to Arequipa and end of the adventure around 5PM.
SEASON & AVAILABILITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS TREK
This trek is suitable for everyone and can be done between April and December – Before you try this trek we recommend to get some acclimatization to the altitude and get better performance.
DEPARTURES - BOOKING & FIRST DEPOSIT
The tour is available every day from Arequipa at 7AM - Last moment booking can be arrange in our office of Arequipa one day in advance for Group/Private Service but these services will be available ONLY if we have spaces in our transport or if our transport and tour guide are available for private service. We really recommend to book this tour in advance through our booking form and guarantee your place with a first deposit via PayPal - The final balance of the trip has to be paid in our office of Arequipa ONE day prior the trip - The booking form and payment instruction will be sent to you via email under request ONLY.
