From Puno we went straight to Arequipa - one of our favourite cities so far in South America. A stunning city with a beautiful main square in front of a towering cathedral with a great vibe and amazing food! In fact, we loved it so much we stayed a week longer than we should have. With our new found bargaining talents we found a cheap hostel with a great view over the city and spent the week eating cheap Mexican food washed down with cold beers. We also visited the mummy 'Juanita - the ice princess' which was pretty fascinating - she was sacrificed by the Incas on the summit of Ampato (over 6000m) over 500 years ago. The Incas sacrificed young children in order to please the Gods when they thought they were angry - this one was for a volcanic erruption they thought would stop after the sacrifice. She was pretty amazing to see - immaculate and the offerings buried with her were like new as well...awesome! While we were in Arequipa we also visited the Monesterio Santa Catalina - a convent (I dont know why it's called monastary) occupying a whole block on the main street with massively high walls guarding it - it's like another city within a city. We decided to take a night tour of it which was an amazing experience. There are hundreds of tiny cells where the nuns would sleep with little kitchens off each one - because we were there at night every room was lit by lanterns and all the fires were burning. That was definitely an experience to remember. So after lazing around for a week we decided we needed to get off our arses and burn some calories so booked a 3 day hike to the Colca Canyon. We left at 3.30am the next day and a very bumpy four hour journey later we arrived at the Condor Mirador to watch the flight of the condors at 8am into the canyon. Unfortunately when I looked behind me to grab Mitch (who was sitting 3 rows behind) I was greeted by a very green faced man and a bag of puke!
Not a good start. So I went in search of Gatorade while Mitch sat with his head between his legs (not impressed at all by the 3 metre wide condors flying above his head). An hour later we were back in the bus heading to the town of Cabanaconde to begin our trek. Unable to eat or keep down even a sip of water, Mitch looked like death warmed up. We really didn't know what to do. But being the little trooper that he his...Mitch powered on. And what a trooper he was! It was a pretty steep downward climb into the canyon with gritty paths that didn't give much in the way of support. But 4 pain-staking hours later Mitch collapsed into our little shack (where we were staying for the night) exhausted! 14 hours of sleep later he was like a different man and managed to wolf down a few pancakes to energise up for the next few hours of trekking. That next day we arrived into an oasis which was pretty awesome...we arrived around midday, sweaty and aching and jumping into the cool waters of the oasis was exactly what we needed! The next day was the strenuous task of hiking back up the canyon which actually turned out to be a lot better than we had anticipated. Phew!! All in all it was an exciting adventure and we were pretty chuffed with our achievement. We stayed one more night in Arequipa and then reluctantly booked our bus to Cusco...to start another trek!(pic 1: me next to the bell tower in the big cathedral over Arequipa; pic 2: Mitch and I day 2 of the Colca Canyon trip)
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