After breakfast the morning we arrived in Cabanaconde and figuring out a route we started hiking around 8am. The town was located around the half way down the Canyon and our destination was the bottom near the River in a small and less touristy part of the lower Canyon. This meant almost the entire day was spent going down hill. The total hiking time on day one was around 5.5 hours. The maps given for the Canyon didn’t include a ton of detail but we found our first homestay that included a few hot springs to relax our muscles in. The bottom of the Canyon was fairly warm so i opted for the luke warm water that helped me cool down. There were a few other people in the homestay and we soon found out there was no menu, we would be eating whatever was available to cook for the group that night! The food and beds were great, although I did have a nap earlier in the day on a concrete slab, so anything felt comfortable when I was that tired. It wasn’t until I was reflecting on the day that I realized I really didn’t sleep the night before (I rarely do on busses) and then I hiked in the heat all day – no wonder I was so tired!

We went to bed early with the plan of leaving at 5:30am the next day to start the hike to try to avoid hiking too much during the heat of the day.