Arequipa and The Colca Canyon

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June 10th 2008

Published: July 10th 2008

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ZLD

Us in the Andes

Arequipa - know as the White city due to the vast amounts of white volcanic rock used as a building material.

Arequipa astonished us with its quaintness, of cobbles streets and beautiful architecture of archways around the main square. Ambling about the central plaza, it buzzed with locals socializing with their friends, it was so busy. Along the streets we dipped into a few tourist shops selling numerous items claiming to be made of alpaca wool. It was a little colder here so we hunted out hat and gloves for the cooler evenings.

We had an interesting city tour of Arequipa. It was a perfect blue sunny day, which I remarked on, to be told it was like that everyday of the year!! On our tour we visited the Santa Catalina Convent, were driven to a fantastic view point, had a quick walk around the cathedral (which has the largest organ in the World with over 1000 pipes), and we also had a look around the alpaca wool factory.

At an altitude of 2325m I had a slight headache on the first day that soon eased.

Our Colca Canyon tour - 2 days and 1 night

Super view over to Misti Volcano

Out of Arequipa, we journeyed through extremely arid, deserted mountain scenery to our destination of the town of Chivay - 3633m above sea level at the Colca Canyon. It was an attention-grabbing drive which took a few hours. Alpacas and lamas fascinated us as we spotted them roaming the land. Traditionally dressed locals were undertaking their daily routines, women and men walking along mountain sides, sometimes with their animals. Women often had young children or babies strapped to their backs by the means of a piece of material. I found myself wondering where these people were going, where had they been and what was life like living on the Andes?

Along our journey the bus stopped at numerous points of interest. Nearly at every stop, there were traditionally dressed women sat with an array of goods to sell often being gloves, hats, jumpers, scarves made from alpaca wool. These women had walked a long way to be at these points to earn some money. It was amazing to see all these goods displayed and they had carried them on their backs. The highest stop at 4000m we had prepared for with chewing coca leaves and ash, to ease the

Cactus fruit seller

effects of altitude sickness, as the locals do. Coca leaves were pretty grim tasting and after 5 mins we spat it out, just couldn’t hold out for the recommended 20mins!

Arriving in Chivay we had lunch, Phil had alpaca, I had good old chicken! Alpaca tasted a bit like beef, quite nice really.

In Chivay we wallowed in the thermal hot springs which were welcomingly warm, in fact the water entering the pool was too hot to touch. We wallowed here chatting to fellow travellers drank cocktails (via a waitress service) for about 45mins. It was great!
Dinner was accompanied by Peruvian dancers, singers and musicians. Lots of fun but a little embarrassing being pulled up on numerous occasions to dance!

It was on the second day that we visited the Colca Canyon famous for the flying condors closely above your head! The Colca canyon was a terrific sight, so vast and deep. There were many tourists here to absorb such a unique environment and stand and watch the condors flying by. This is known as one of the deepest canyons in the world and rather impressive.

We enjoyed staying in Arequipa and our trip to