Colca Canyon is the canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. It is located about 160 kilometres northwest of Arequipa. The Canyon is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States at 4160 meters and it is promoted as the “world’s deepest canyon”, although the canyon’s walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon.

The Colca Valley is a colourful Andean Valley with many small towns founded during the Spanish colonial times. It is still inhabited by people of the Collaguas and the Cabanas cultures who maintain the ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces.

The name Colca refers to small granaries of mud and stone, built into the cliffs of the valley and the canyon. These repositories were used during the Inca and pre-Inca times to store food such as potatoes, quinoa and other Andean crops. They were also used as tombs for important people.