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Published: December 31st 2006
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Hammock Days
Ross' feet as he relaxes in a hammock in the garden of the Point Hostel in Arequipa Claire:
We arrived in Arequipa, which is thankfully below 2500m, (above this height you can really start to feel the altitude) early in the morning. It's a beautiful city with lots to do and even its own indoor climbing wall! We stayed at the kinda famous Point Hostel which was great and organized a 3 day trek of the nearby Colca Canyon for us starting the next day.
Colca Canyon is a weird place, a canyon twice the depth of the grand canyon that Peruvians claim to be the deepest canyon in the world. Problem is, they have a canyon deeper than it only a little further north and the deepest canyon in the world is actually in Nepal or somewhere similar. This doesn’t stop Peruvians being wildly proud of their big canyon though. Very strange behaviour. The canyon also has a lookout point near one end where condors come to play in the thermals in the early mornings.
Our trek took us 4 odd hours and about 12Km on the first day down the 1200m to the canyon floor, where we stayed in a little hostel in a small village. I was in pain already by this point and had
plaza de armas
the main square in Arequipa. thought to be one of the nicest in all of Peru's cities picked up a horrible tummy bug of some kind so I wasn’t having fun. The second day took us along the floor of the canyon for about another 12Km with educational stops on the way so our guide could tell us about the local flora and fauna. We ended the day in an oasis with a beautiful pool fed by the river that runs through the canyon. By this point I figured I was stuck at the bottom of this bloody canyon 'cos there was no way in hell I could climb 1200m back up in 3 hours at 2am so we could catch the bus to the condor lookout point the next day. Thankfully (and rather humiliatingly) our guide sorted me a donkey that I could ride back up on and even better than this I wasn’t the only one on a donkey as another girl on the trek had some kind of foot problem (apparently) that meant she couldn’t be arsed trekking back up either.
Two and a half scary and very precarious hours on a kinda suicidal donkey later and I was back at the town at the top of the canyon waiting for Ross and the
others to arrive. When everyone turned up we scoffed some breakfast and got the bus to the disappointingly condor-less condor lookout where we spent a cold hour staring into the sky. There was a mad dash onto the warm bus that took us to the hot springs at Chivay, a town on the way back to Arequipa. We luxuriated in these for a while (they were amazing and there were loads of different pools, indoor and out, of all different temperatures so you could find the perfect one for you) then headed back to Arequipa and our hostel (and a really hot shower!).
The next day we had a night bus booked to Cusco and we weren't really up for strenuous behaviour like investigating the climbing wall so we went for a stote around the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. This monastery is in all the guide books and is like a little city within a city. We had heard it was a cool place and worth a visit. I'm not convinced to be honest. I don't know what exactly I was expecting from a monastery but I definately didnt think they would have huge bleeding plastic Jesus' everywhere... it all
el misti
the aptly named volcano that towers over Arequipa. it was so hard to get a shot of it... this was the best we managed. looked a bit underfunded to me. Anyway, it made for some nice photos and there were hummingbirds in the gardens inside (they also had really nice clean toilets... joy!) and there were some amazing paintings in their gallery. I would say it's worth a look to fill a quiet sunny afternoon but it seemed like there were a lot of more entertaining ways to pass the time in this beautiful city. After such a day of excitement, the night bus to Cusco (and more bus bingo) was a welcome sight.
Ross:
Another night bus brought us to Arequipa, a really nice colonial city with the same european flavour as Lima (Peru’s great for this its towns and cities don’t seem to have sucumbed to the rancid americanisation that Central America has). As Claire says we organized a trek to Colca Canyon. I tried advising Claire of what was to come but she insisted she was up for it and it probably wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t got ill the first morning. The first 2 days weren’t too bad for me a little stiff but coped with out any problems. Arriving at the oasis on the 2nd
Claire in Arequipa
me looking (and feeling) normal for a change in Arequipa in a little cafe overlooking the plaza day was quite surreal - sitting drinking beer in lush green surroundings with a small waterfall cascading into a swimming pool in front of you while the arid, rocky walls of the canyon toward over you just seemed out of place. Getting down into the canyon had been the easy part and I pretty much killed myself getting out. The first half of the climb was torture and I struggled but I managed to get a second wind and powered up the rest, don’t know if this was due to sheer mental determination or the fact I had started feeling a bit dodgy that morning and needed to reach some facilites. After standing around in the freezing cold waiting for some condors that were obviously not going to show up, we took a trip to some hot baths. Just the tonic for sore muscles and relaxed in the refreshing volcanic waters.
Back in Arequipa and not feeling too great we headed out to dinner Claire had a very tasty alpaca steak and i plummed for (the supposed delicacy of Peru) guinea pig (called cuy). So far the food in Peru hadn’t really impressed; generally its fried meat with chips or
Arequipa taxi
what passes for a taxi round these parts. we weren't convinced. carb overload with chips, rice and mash potatoes all on the same plate. One good thing though is the soups over here, they are a meal in themselves, massive plates briming with pasta, meat, veg and usually part of a corncob. Anyway, my dish arrived and much to Claire's disgust still had the head and feet attached (guinea pigs have seriously vicious teeth for a supposedly gentle herbivore). Unfortunatley we didn’t have the camera out so dear reader you’ll just have to go down the pet shop, imagine one of the smelly rodents shaved, gutted and squashed flat by a big rock and then fryed in a pan to get the idea of what this looked like. I tucked into my meal and, apart from what i can only assume were the things lungs (which were quite tasty), guinea pig doesn’t taste like much, doesn’t have much meat on it and seems very over priced.
Felling slightly worse for wear after climbing out of the canyon and my guts feeling ever worse, we spent the day wandering around Arequipas’s magnificent main squre and after a disturbingly morbid tour of the cities famed Monasterio de Santa Catalina, another night bus whisked
Road shots 1
some shots from the bus on the way to Arequipa. some of the landscapes were pretty surreal.. us to Cusco.
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