Blogs from Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru, South America - page 17

We are finally awake in Arequipa. The traveling here was really rough. We left Miami at 7:15pm and arrived in Lima, Peru at 1:00am. Needless to say we were absolutely exhausted! Líma´s airport is pretty cool, it´s open 24 hours a day for flights like ours. So at like 2am I got Papa Johns and Jose got a dish called Lomo Saltado which is a Peruvian dish with beef. We then went into the terminal and tried to sleep but between all of the announcements and the workers making sure we were waiting for the correct flight, it was pretty difficult. It´s amazing how different security is in third world countries. They didn´t care if we were wearing our shoes, didn´t check for liquids at all, in fact we brought water bottles (the reusable ones filled ... read more

We arrived into Arequipa kast night in the evening. We were with our two new friends, Rob and Dave. We all shared a taxi from the terminal terrestre (bus terminal) to a hotel called "Las Nuñez" for a total of S5 (under $2). The hotel was nice. We managed to talk the lady down from her original price of S75 including breakfast, to S60 not including breakfast. This gave us our own private room and private bath with cable TV - all for about $20. Good deal. Nice rooms across from each other. Dave and Rob's room had an upstairs too and about 6 beds in the room - same price! Today we woke up and walked around the city. Our goal was to book a Colca Canyon trek for tomorrow, find a new hostel that ... read more

Greetings from Arequipa! After an uninteresting day in Lima, I realized why it was uninteresting: because major cities are all western-style and boring! I booked a 15-hr overnight bus to Arequipa, in the south of peru. I called Roxana to tell her I´d phone when I returned to Lima, bought some food and was off. Pariwana (my hostel in Lima) had a travel agent that helped me book - in general they were great, albeit a little too ultra-hip-traveller for me (nirvana, the doors and aerosmith playing 24-7, with Nsync thrown in for good measure). The bus was alright - comfy seats, I brought along my own yummy food (peanut butter (yes, peanut butter), avocado, cheese, crackers and some pita-style bread), the movies were awful american movies but alas I woke up in a new place, ... read more

An Andreas Geburtstag verlassen wir Cusco und fahren rund 8 Stunden in Richtung Arequipa. In einem verlassenen Ort, Pampa Canahuas, wechseln wir Bus, um noch am selben Tag die Region um den Colca Canyon zu erreichen. Der Colca Canyon ist mit seinen rund 1200 Metern Tiefe einer der tiefsten Canyons der Welt. Kondore kreisen in der guten Thermik am Rand der Schlucht, was viele Touristen in diese Region lockt. Die Landschaft um den Colca Canyon ist einmalig. Bauern leben in kleinen Doerfchen teils ganz unten in der Schlucht. Alle Abhaenge sind seit der Praeinkazeit terrassiert, nur so ist einfache Landwirtschaft hier moeglich. Viele der Doerfer im Canyon sind ueber keine Strasse erschlossen, einzig ein schmaler Fussweg fuehrt die Schlucht hoch zur Strasse, von wo aus einige Busse in die groesseren Orte fahren. Nach einer Nacht in ... read more

Needing the previous night's sleep to continue recovering from the Inca Trail, we opted for a day bus to Arequipa today, from which we could explore the Colca Canyon and, if we were lucky, spot condors! I think I slept for 90% of our 8 hour bus journey, thus not much to report from today. We booked our tour of the canyon from our hostel and enjoyed dinner in a balcony restaurant overlooking yet another beautiful plaza complete with gardens, fountain, churches and cathedral. The buildings here are made from volcanic ash (hence its nickname as the White City) from the Chachani volcano (which has 7 craters) which last erupted 800,000 years ago. Other active volcanoes surrounding the city are Misti (5800m, last erupted in 1560) and Pichu Pichu, The city also experiences seismic tremors daily, ... read more