August 17, 2018 – August 19, 2018

Canon del Pato (Duck Canyon) lies between the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra (White Mountain Range and Black Mountain Range), and it is a spectacular drive. The canyon is at times as narrow as 15 metres and the gorge can be as deep at 1,000 metres. Top that off with about 35 single lane tunnels carved out of the rock, and you get a beautiful, exciting drive.

One of the valleys before we reached Canon del Pato.

We had had a late start on the drive, so we made our way through just one or two of the tunnels and found our riverside pullout camping spot just as it was starting to get dark.  We spent two days wild camping along a beautiful river.

We love when we get to wild camp in nature.

Experimenting with photographing the stars.

We left our spot early on a Sunday morning, hoping to cut down on the amount of on-coming traffic we would meet, thereby reducing the number of times we would need to stop or back up in order to accommodate the trucks and buses that also use this route.

If you follow the road on the left of the picture you can see a few of the tunnel openings.

It’s funny that the name of the canyon translates to Duck Canyon….the word in Spanish, Pato, means the bird, but Duck in English can be something you do to avoid hitting your head….and with all the tunnels, it seemed so appropriate.

And more tunnels! The route was beautiful, if a little bit stressful. There were signs all along the road telling you to honk your horn to warn on-coming traffic that you were about to round a bend or enter a tunnel.

Waterfall.

We made it to the small town of Caraz, our base for the next few days, having met only a handful of trucks along the route.  We were excited to be back in the mountains, and ready to explore some parts of the magnificent Cordillera Blanca.