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Published: December 15th 2008
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Arequipa Plaza de Armas
Does what it says on the tin Hello. Me again. I've got a bit of time now because my bus out of La Paz got cancelled because of some protests, so I'm going to try and get you bang upto date with whats been happening over here. Which probably means I'll do one more entry and give up, but you never know.
For me, the night bus from Nasca to Arequipa was a comfortable and very pleasant experience, I slept the whole way. For Beth however, it wasn't such a great journey, as someone tried to nick her purse, so she spent the rest of the night worrying about a repeat performance.
Upon arrival in Arequipa, Beth went straight to sleep, leaving me to explore on my own. In nearly all the towns and cities I've been in so far, the central plaza has been a highlight, as they're always bustling centres with people going about their daily business. Unlike in England, where we all sit around inside moaning about the cold, everyone here spends their days outside, which is a much nicer way to do things I think.
Another reason I liked Arequipa is that is overlooked by a fantastic volcano, Volcan Misti. If
Arequipa
From the bridge towards Cusco you've been following my tales at all, you'll have gathered by now that I've become quite a fan of volcanoes, and as Misti reaches nearly 6,000m it's snow capped, which adds an extra element! Despite this, I decided not to make an attempt to climb it, I'm going to wait until I'm in La Paz to hopefully reach the magical 6,000m mark. Watch this space. Instead, I just meandered upto a mirador Yanahana, where you can see Arequipa laid out at the foot of Misti, which was quite cool in its own right.
Arequipa is also home to Juanita, a frozen Inca mummy, and one afternoon in Arequipa we paid her a visit. It's a really interesting museum to visit, you get a half hour video about the ice mummies, before a student gives you a guided tour of Incan sacrificial artefacts before you see Juanita herself. It's pretty amazing how well she's preserved after 600 years in the snow.
Following the museum, we reserved our bus tickets to go into the Colca Canyon the next day, before getting some food. The infamous menu del dia was only 2.50 soles here. Cashback!
Colca Canyon
To quote
Misti from Yanahura
An arch and a volcano. How arty. my guidebook "The Colca Canyon is deep". I'll put a bit of meat on the bones for you, by telling you its the second deepest canyon in the world, just 100m off the record held by its neighbour Cotahusi. To get there, we had to endure a bumpy 6 hour bus journey, accompanied by the most dreadful music known to man. Luckily we arrived just before I commited suicide.
We spent a couple of days at the canyon, on the first we hiked 2 hours down from the town of Cabanaconde to the base of the canyon. This seemed easy enough, and at the bottom we were rewarded with a swimming pool to sit by and swim. However, going up was a completely different experience, and 3 hours later I collapsed at the top, absolutely exhausted, but successful.
Sadly, the climb, and the extreme difference between the days heat and the cold at night took its toll on me, and I woke up the next morning feeling like death. Never fear though, we had a 7am bus to catch to go see some condors, and I dutifully got on board. After 1 and a half hours of sitting
Colca Canyon
Looking downriver in the cold feeling ill,with no condors to be seen I was pretty fed up. The condors must have known this, because they finally decided to come out, and go for a bit of a soar over the canyon. It was pretty impressive, and made me feel a bit better. Shortly after I relapsed, and spent most of the remainder of the day in bed.
Fortunately, it turned out to only be a brief delay, and the next day I was back at full strength. This meant only one thing, a bus to Cusco. I'll start writing that story in a minute!
Stewart
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