500 Adrenaline Adventures (Frommer's) - Lois Friedland [228]
Within a certain distance of Seal Island in each direction, there’s a sweet spot called the “Ring of Death” where the sharks wait for unsavvy seals—usually, the young, old, or infirm ones—to make a mistake. If the seals cross the Ring of Death near the murky bottom of the bay, they’ll pass under the sharks unnoticed and make it to the open sea safely. But if they swim too near the surface, it’s only a matter of time until a great white attacks, and that’s almost always a fatal encounter.
Though you can get close enough to hear and smell the teeming seal population there, Seal Island itself cannot be visited—and you probably wouldn’t want to, anyway. The attraction here is undoubtedly the wildlife interaction offshore, not any sort of natural beauty onshore. The rocks are thick with seal guano, and there’s no soil or vegetation on the island, which reaches a maximum “elevation” of just 6m (20 ft.). To lay eyes on Seal Island from the water, it doesn’t look like land at all, just a heaving mass of intertwined seals that have survived another day inside the Ring of Death. —SM
www.capetown.travel.
Tours: African Shark Eco Charters, Simonstown ( 27/21/785 1947;www.ultimate-animals.com). Boat Company Tours, Simonstown ( 27/83/257-7760; www.boatcompany.co.za).
Cape Town (35km/22 miles).
Transport available via tour operator (see below).
$$ Four Rosemead, 4 Rosmead Ave. ( 27/21/480-3810;www.fourrosmead.com). $$$ Mount Nelson, 76 Orange St. ( 27/21/483-1000; www.mountnelson.co.za).
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Seeing Giant Condors
The Flight of the Condors
Colca Canyon, Peru
“There’s one.” “There’s another.” And, before your eyes are soaring some of the rarest and most magnificent creatures on Earth: Giant condors. The viewing area is almost a mile above the Colca river running through Colca Canyon in Peru, and the canyon walls make a perfect backdrop to the soaring birds.
Colca Canyon is one of the few places in the world to provide such an up-close view of the giant condors. You and the other tourists in the area (fewer than 100), have been sitting on the ledges 3,900m (13,000 ft.) above sea level, at the scenic Cruz del Condor in the cool morning air waiting for this moment. Then, as the sun warms the air in the deep canyon and creates the proper thermals, about two dozen giant condors leave their nesting ledges on the steep canyon wall below you, spread their 2.7m (9-ft.) wings, and soar like gliders. You can spot the younger ones because they are still brown, while the more mature ones have developed white collars and white wing markings. After 20 to 30 minutes, they soar off in search of food and you sit there a bit awe-struck. Personally, it was one of the most memorable moments of my life.
Andean condors, the largest birds in the Western Hemisphere, are rare, but lucky travelers may see them circling overhead, or flying off nests on mountainside ledges in such places as Perum, Ecuador, and Colombia. These birds are actually vultures with a ruff of white feathers, white patches on the wings, and a wing span that can stretch up to 10 feet. The San Diego Zoo sponsored a breeding program based in Colombia and about 70 condors have been released in that country’s highlands during the past 2 decades. In the U.S., the California condors are endangered. It’s estimated that about 350 are left; some are flying free while others are in a breeding program.
Giant condors soar overhead in Colca Canyon, Peru.
Colca Canyon, located in southern Peru, for years was called the world’s deepest canyon. Based on recent measurements, some surveys indicate it is now ranks number two (many geologist say that Cotahuasi Canyon in southwestern Peru is deeper), but even so, it’s still approximately twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. With the exception of hotels built for tourists, the area around the canyon is predominantly primitive