A gorge more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, its walls stepped with farming terraces cut before the Incas and still worked by the villages of Yanque and Cabanaconde. At the Cruz del Cóndor viewpoint in the early morning Andean condors ride the rising thermals in slow spirals, often passing just metres overhead. The rest of the valley rewards a slow drive: open-air hot springs, stone colonial churches, no hurry.