Advertisement
Friday Jenna, Sabine, and I got on an overnight bus to Arequipa (9hours). The bus was awesome and super comfy. We arrived in the city at about 6am and couldnt get a room till 11am so we killed time eating bfast and walking around the city. Arequipa is beautiful--It is bigger and cleaner than Cusco. We walked through all the markets and hunted down the best coffee places (Cusco Coffee Company is by far the best). They have streets for everything..some are just for cakes, just for dentists, just for fruit, just for shoes, etc. Its a weird way to organize things. For dinner we went to this great Italian/Sea Food place and had some really really good fresh shrimp (since Arequipa is closer to the coast its safe to eat). We then explored the night life and went to some super cheap happy hours.
In the morning we caught a bus to Chivay, which is about an hour an half from the canyon. This town was super small and practically empty. They are famous for their natural hot springs and we checked those out. But that is about all the town has to offer and I don't really recommend
stopping there unless you have to. They do have a couple good little places to eat.
We caught a 430am bus to the canyon in the morning--standing room only. They packed on person after person onto the bus and it was hot, smelly, and bumpy. We also didn't have a clue what stop to get off at and since no one announces or says anything we missed the canyon and went an extra half hour to another small town that was practically empty. We waited here (got some much needed coffee) for about and hour and then took a bus back to the canyon. This time we got off at the right spot... The canyon was amazing. It was so beautiful and HUGE! You can't really see how big it is in any of the pics, but I think it is supposed to be almost twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. There were also a dozen or so Condor birds flying around, which it is famous for.
We then started the long journey back to Cusco. We took a couple buses to make it back to Arequipa where we bought fresh fruit, yogurt and granola and sat
dinner!
finally some fresh seafood! in the plaza to people watch. From Arequipa to Cusco we took the bus from hell. It left late, was really cramped, no heat, bright lights, our window wouldnt shut, it stopped every hour for about a half how to do who knows what, it crammed people into the isles and took three hours longer than supposed to...not something I really want to do again, but I guess bad busses are part of traveling. Overall it was a good trip. It was good to see another city and get out into the country for a bit, I only wish we had more time and could have gone hiking around the canyon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0612s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb