Arequipa - Peru

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Arequipa 21.11.2011

Last Bit of cramming done before leaving for Arequipa, computer stuff mainly. Oh and a last minute McDonalds!! Our 2nd one now - once you start you cant stop!! With a 3 hour flight I caught up on 10 days worth of diary catch up. We arrived at our hotel which was nice, then went for a walk around the city, nicknamed the white city as a lot of the buildings are made from the volcanic rock from the 3 surrounding volcanoes. The city itself is beautiful - colonial. Very nice old buildings and huge churches which the mums would enjoy. The main square/plaza is again very pretty, lots of fountains, greenery, benches, flowers etc. and surrounded by buildings with archways - all very romesque. We then went for a bit to eat at a turkish restaurant suprisingly called Istanbul! Michael as usual cracking the jokes all night making everyone laugh, I think he was delirious due to lack of sleep (from the Inca trail). We then tried our first Pisco Sour, the first of many. I had a passion fruit flavour one which was nice!

22.11.2011

We got our day packs ready, then headed towards the Colca Canyon for an overnight stop. On the way we went through a Vicouner protection park and took a few pictures, they are part of the camelid family, and the national mamal of Peru. They look a bit like Llamas, they´re cute. They are protected as their fibre is one of the most expensive along with cashmere so there are a lot of poachers!

We then stopped for a lunch Buffet which was nice, overeating and stuffing ourselves as usual. Then on to our hotel for the night, where me and michael had the family room or suite, as there was two double beds in it and two singles! it also had two floors ha. It was great until we spotted the two donkeys outside of our window, great, we will be woken up at 4 in the morning with ee ooring!

Later in the evening we went to some natural hot springs. They were so nice, like a very hot swimming pool outside, surrounded by mountains. It was so cold outside than when I tried to get in, it was burning my feet!! Something like 39 degrees. Michael treated himself to a cold beer 😊 We then went for some more food (its all we do is eat!!!) where Ryan got guinea pig, me an Michael both tried it, wasnt that nice. I thought it tasted fishy, and it wasnt particulary nice ripping meat of its tiny rib bones with your teeth! S x.

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