The local people maintain their ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces, called andenes.

[3] The Quechua-speaking Cabanas, probably descended from the Wari culture, and the Aymara-speaking Collaguas, who moved to the area from the Lake Titicaca region, inhabited the valley in the pre-Inca era.

The Spaniards, under Gonzalo Pizarro, arrived in 1540, and in the 1570s the Spanish viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered the inhabitants throughout the former Inca Empire to leave their scattered dwellings and to move to a series of centrally located settlements in a process called "Reductions".

In May 1981, the Polish Canoandes rafting expedition, led by Andrzej Pietowski, made the first descent of the river below Cabanaconde and proclaimed the possibility of its being the world's deepest canyon.

[4] The joint Polish-Peruvian "Cañon del Colca 2005" expedition verified the altitudes of the river and the surrounding heights via GPS.

Above Chivay, at an elevation of 3,500 metres (11,500 ft), agriculture gives way to livestock raising, principally alpacas and llamas, with some sheep and dairy cattle as well.

In contrast, 24 kilometres (15 mi) to the southeast of Cabanaconde rises the 6,288 metres (20,630 ft) high Ampato, a snow-capped extinct volcano.

Animals include vizcacha, a rabbit-sized relative of the chinchilla, zorrino, deer, fox, and vicuña, the wild ancestor of the alpaca.

Archeological sites include the Caves of Mollepunko above Callalli where rock art (said to be 6,000 years old) depicts the domestication of the alpaca; the mummy of Paraqra, above Sibayo; the Fortaleza de Chimpa, a reconstructed mountaintop citadel that looks down on Madrigal; ruins of pre-Hispanic settlements throughout the valley; and many others.

The Colca is also well known for crafts: goods knitted from baby alpaca fiber and a unique form of embroidery that adorns skirts (polleras), hats, vests, and other items of daily wear and use.

The most distant source of Amazon River is accessible from the Colca valley via Tuti, a one-day trip to a spring at 5,120 metres (16,800 ft), where snowmelt from the Mismi bursts from a rock face.