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Published: January 18th 2015
After a day in Aguas Calientes to enjoy the hot springs, a soft bed and our first showers (care of
EcoPackers hostel) in a few days we headed for Arequipa, the white city. Straight off the overnight bus we joined a free walking tour and get a great introduction to the city including the white volcanic stone cathedral, the food market with frog juice, a view to the three volcanoes that surround the city, some beer and chocolate samples and of course the obligatory pisco tasting to finish it off! After the walking tour we headed for
Wild Rover Arequipa hostel and enjoyed beers by the pool in the beautiful afternoon sun. The night saw some quality pub trivia, Courtney pulling off an award-winning rendition of
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nCqRmx3Dnw">Fresh Prince of Bel Airand some spectacular victory celebrations. After a massive introduction to Arequipa we returned to the poolside and planned our trip to the Colca Canyon and on towards Lake Titicaca and Bolivia.
Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world and home to a famous family of 45 Andean condors. We started off to the Canyon at 3am from Arequipa and began an overnight trek down the 1200m vertical descent after spotting some of the young condors
flying and stopping at a few stunning miradors (lookouts) along the edge of the ridge. It was spectacular climbing down into the canyon along brutal switch-back trails carved from pure granite by the locals and amazing to hear that the towns at the bottom had only had electricity for 10 years and the first road wide enough for non-llama-transport only 3 years ago! After a traditional lunch we headed another 3 hours along the river at the base of the canyon to an oasis where we stayed the night complete with pool, candlelit dinner and an early bedtime ready for the intimidating climb back out in the morning before sunrise.
Another pre-sunrise wake up call and we were packed and on the trail by about 4:45am. The 1200m vertical ascent was significantly steeper than Day 2 of the Inca Trail but with a very determined and fit group of walkers we charged ahead at reached the summit just a the sunrise broke over the edge of the canyon. A very impressive sub-3hr from bottom to top and a well deserved breakfast at the local town. After a short time to recover from the climb we made our way through
the towns at the top of the canyon towards (name of the town we had lunch buffet in?), along the mountain passes and stunning scenario heading back towards Arequipa including a very cold stop off at the Mirador Del Los Volcanoes at 4900m above sea level. We arrived truly exhausted back to Arequipa and stayed the night before an early bus ride to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca in preparation for leaving Peru to enter Bolivia.
