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Published: February 28th 2007
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Arequipas skyline
Arequipa is surrounded by many high mountain peaks. Many of which are volcanoes. It results in quite a dramatic skyline Hello again
We arrived in Arequipa jumped into a taxi and our taxi driver as well as giving us a lift to our hotel gave us a free car tour of the main sights of Arequipa which was very interesting but slightly unusual to say the least so we gave him an extra tip for his tour. He will probably run a tour company in a few years.
Arequipa is a really beautiful city the whole place is made out of a volcanic rock that makes it really attractive. Around the city there are many things to see and do. While we where there we visited the Santa Catalina convent which was closed off to the public for 300 years. This used to be a convent where over 400 nuns lived no one could go in except doctors. The nuns once inside could never leave and they could only speak to their family from behind a wooden screen and whilst wearing veil. The place was really interesting as the tour told us all about how things used to work. Inside the convent there was a class system and nuns lived according to their class which was judged by how
much money their family had payed as a dowry. The richest nuns lived with up to 3 servants who had to live in the convent with them. There was only ever one nun who escaped and she did so by putting a corpse in her bed with her servants help and all the other nuns thought she was dead and she disappeared.
The city of Arequipa also has a mueseum dedicated to the incas and specifically their habit of placing child sacrifices on the surrounding mountains this has lead to the discovery of over a dozen mummified bodies on the mountian tops around Arequipa. The museum was really interesting and in the end we even go to see a mummified body which was amazingly preserved as it had been sitting in ice and snow for 400 years.
One of the main attractions around Arequipa however is the Colca Canyon this was thought to be the worlds deepest canyon at 3400m deep until it was replaced at the top of the list by Cotowasi nearby at 160m deeper. Most people go to the Colca Canyon on a day tour to see the condors that live in the Canyon, from
Catholic church in the main Plaza
Much of Arequipa has been made from the while volcanic rock sillar. This has resulted in Arequipa been nicknamed the ¨white city¨. The overall effect can be quite stunning the viewing point Cruz del Condor. However Peter with some smooth talking managed to get Triona to reluctantly agree to 3 day trek in and then out of the canyon.
The tour started with a full day of walking down to the bottom of the canyon which although down was pretty hard on the knees we arrived at the bottom of the canyon. This made you feel pretty small to say the least. Then we had to walk about half way up the other side of the canyon to the place where we were staying. On the way down we saw several condors which were all pretty awesome and very big, the closest was about 10 m away as we were putting on our rain coats it just glided past. The canyon is very steep and as such there are no cars so people including old fogies have to walk in and out of the canyon to go to the shops, these people were amazing and really put some of the old people at home who have trouble with stairs to shame. One old lady of about 75-80 years old had a giant sack on her back and was walking
Streetscape within the catholic monestary
This was one of the oddest places to visit. This catholic monestary was secluded from the outside world for nearly 300 years until 1970 when it was opened to the public. down into the canyon, she yelled at anyone who tried to help her and she was only wearing sandals (which made us feel fairly silly as we were slipping in hiking boots).
On the second day we had to walk back down into the canyon to an oasis at the bottom which had pools and was really nice, however it was hard to relax when we knew what we had to do that afternoon. At about 2pm we set off to walk out of the canyon. Our guide told us it would take about 3 hrs and it was over 1500m straight up, the track went up by winding its way around, between and over all the rocks and trees. The walk was pretty tough but good training for the inca trail. An added bonus was that we got to see even more condors and one was really close again and made us very jealous that it just glided past whilst we struggled up the hill. The walk up took us just under 3 hours however when we got to the top we had to wait for the rest of the group, and as luck would have it- it was
Colca Canyon
This is the second largest canyon in the world. It was very dramatic to say the least raining so Peter using his best bush tucker man skills and found a cave where we hung out until the rest of the group arrived. Our guide also told us that his best time out of the canyon was 1 hour and 20 min so although feeling pretty good about doing it, he certainly put us in our place.
The next day we got up early and went to the famous condor viewing spot Cruz del Condor, where after our 2 days of walking and 20 condors we saw 1 condor about 3 km away in the bottom of the canyon, it was a bit dissapointing for all the people who had come out that morning just to see condors.
After the colca canyon we headed to the town of Chivay and quickly sorted ourselves out with some lazing in the hot springs which definately helped the muscles and was very relaxing, we then had to catch a bus back to Arequipa. Unfortunately the bus ride took an extra hour and a half as it was snowing outside and a thick fog had developed covering the road in snow, obviously the bus driver go out at this point
Triona looking confident
Triona is seen standing here confident about her ability to walk down to the bottom and up again of the huge canyon lying next to her and put snow chains on. No, but at least he slowed down a lot and we made it back in one piece.
We had to rush back to Arequipa grab our stuff and catch a bus to Cuzco which arrived at the convienient time of 5am but we got a room and have been here for the last few days, getting ready for the Inca Trail which start tomorrow morning at 5-30am.
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Mel
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Congratulations on your canyon trek! I don't know if the photos do it any justice, i think i'll have to see for myself one day. Dam these blogs make me jealous!