Blogs from Arequipa, Peru, South America - page 105

After a 4am start and a 6hr bumpy bus ride we arrived at Cabonaconde in the Colca Canyon. Ruc Sacs were packed and we were ready to set off on our 3 day Jaunt into the second Deepest Canyon in the world(The deepest is just up the road but is not as good to look at). We had planned to be independant on this trip as the distances didnt seem that great. On the approach to the Canyon edge we were all ready shattered, we had only done 3K thou the mountain sun was burning down on us. We looked over the edge and thought "Nuts to that lets go back and hire a Mule" After asking round the village we knew we wouldn´t get out that day so we found a bed for the night. ... read more

Hi all. sorry for the delay. weve been really busy taking spanish classes from 10 to 2 every day and then exploring in arequipa in the afternoons. we both like arequipa very much. it, for one thing, is so much cleaner - at least in terms of the air and the streets - than lima. also it is sunny!! thank god I thought I was going to go nuts in the constant rain and gloom of lima's winter! It's also much more laid back and, of course, smaller and easier to navigate. The language course has been great. Four hours per day of talking in spanish wipes both of us out though. it's all one on one classes so you're constantly conversing. up to today most of it was review (though much needed review) of the ... read more

Our 10 hour train trip from Cusco to Puno was just great! You´d think 10 hours would be a long, long day but it was thoroughly enjoyable and the scenery was spectacular. Something like the wild,wild west. The train consisted of 3 cars for 1st class and 2 cars tourist class and an observation car with bar. Our seats were two big straight back comfy chairs set before a raised table for our lunch service and a great view from the wide windows to our left. We calculated we traveled the 250 miles at 25 miles per hour! The lunch was great. By the way, as the lunch appetizer, I chose the tomato soup, and Dennis ordered the roast alpaca. It was prepared as thinly sliced pieces of medium rare meat with a sweet potato puree. ... read more

The colonial city of Arequipa stands in pleasant valley about 1,000 km south-east of Lima. It is undisputedly the commercial centre of southern Peru, and its people are known to have a general resentment towards the capital, attempting at every opportunity to refute the belief that everything in Peru is run from Lima. Thus stories abound about how dirty, dangerous, uncultured e.t.c. the capital is, and the locals seemed delighted when I told them that I was planning only to view Lima’s bus station!! Chris, Matt and I spent our first day exploring Arequipa, and visited the “Museo Santuarios Andinos”, home to the so-called “Juanita” or “the ice maiden”. Juanita was discovered on the top of Mount Ampato near Arequipa in 1995 by Johan Reinhard. She is believed to have been aged between 12 and 14 ... read more

With the help of a Belgian couple that we had met some days before on our trip to the ballestas islands, we planned a trip into the Cañon de Colca. For years there was raging controversy over whether or not this was the world´s deepest canyon about 3191 meter, but it has recently drawn in a close second to the neighbouring Canyon. the local people are known for their painstackingly decorated traditional clothing, especially the women´s clothes.Lonely planet We started our trip by shopping around in all the touragencies in Arequipa. Trips into the canyon is a big business and lots of tourist pay really amazingly a lot. We wanted to save a few bucks ( euhm, like 30 or 40) for the experience... We copied a topographic map of the area and we bought ... read more