Southern Peru

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After a few days in the desert near Ica we headed east to Arequipa (alt. approx 2500m), the 2nd city in Peru. The city sits in the shadow of three volcanoes, the most prominent being El Misti. With a fantastic looking Plaza De Armas surrounded by cobbled streets and alleyways, it is a far nicer city than Lima, and has a much more cosmopolitan feel to it than anywhere in Peru we had been to date. We spent a bit of time sat drinking coffee (and beer!) on the restaurant balconies overlooking the Plaza - very nice, although we kept getting bothered by locals playing Simon and Garfunkel on the Pan Pipes.

From Arequipa we made our way north over the Alitplato (high altidude pampa) to a town called Chivay (alt. approx 3700m), at the head of the the Colca Canyon. After 4 hours by bus on predonimatley unmade roads, the approach to the town felt like we were landing in a plane, the road down was so steep. I spent most of the first two days in Chivay in the loo. It was a nice loo although rather less nice after 2 days of having me as a guest than when we had arrived.

Chivay is a little mountain community of farmers, only recently discovering tourism and yet already there is an Irish bar in the town...not much else, but an Irish Bar. Full of a bunch of drunken American kids too - nob heads.

From Chivay we travelled up the valley (once I was confident enough to venture out of the the hostal toilet and spend a few hours on a bus). We saw about 6 condors in 1 day, a couple as close as 10 m away. Pretty fantastic looking birds although the ones we saw were still not fully grown. (Fully grown they have 3m wing spans).

Scott

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