On Monday I saw the sights of Arequipa, including the massive Cathedral in Arequipa's own Plaza de Armas (below).
I also went for a walk around the Santa Catalina monastery, which was founded in 1580 and is like a town within the city (there are some pictures here, here and here).
I then booked myself on a 3-day trek into Colca Canyon, which at 3191m is the second deepest canyon in the world (the deepest is the nearby Cotahuasi Canyon). I got an early night on Monday, because the following morning I was picked up by minibus at 3:30am for the start of the trip. There were two others from my hostel also on the trip - Margot from France, and Markus from Germany - as well as Chris and Joanne, a Liverpudlian fireman and his girlfriend, both on career breaks.
Our first stop was Cruz del Cóndor, which is the spot at which condors fly out of the canyon at about 9am every day (this was the reason for the early start). The condors did make an appearance as expected, but they didn't come particularly close to me, so this was about the best photo I got of them.
We then drove to Cabanaconde, a small town at the edge of the canyon, where we had lunch, and we also witnessed schoolchildren staging a strange protest. They all seemed to be protesting about different things, so I guess it was some kind of a school project.
After lunch we began the trek down to the bottom of the canyon. This is the view we got from the top, and a few hours later, this is the view we got from the bottom. We then continued walking along the bottom of the canyon until we reached our lodgings for the night in a village called San Juan de Chuccho. We stayed in very basic adobe huts with only candles for lighting, and not a lot of other amenities. They did have a good view though.
The following day involved just three hours of walking along fairly flat terrain, only passing through a few small villages, to our second hostel in Sangalle. Below is a view of Sangalle, and on the left of this photo you can also see the zigzag path out of the canyon that awaited us the following day.
If our rooms were basic the previous night, they were beyond basic this time - bamboo huts erected directly onto the ground, with no lighting at all. However, the hostel did have a swimming pool, and we were expecting to spend the afternoon relaxing here. However, due to the 15C temperatures and heavy rain, that didn't happen. After an hour or two of sitting around wondering if the weather was going to improve, some of the guides suggested a game of football, Peruvians vs Gringos, and we took them up on their offer. The rain got even heavier, and the pitch turned into a mudbath, but I'm pleased to report that the gringos won 5-4.
The following morning we woke at 5am to begin the climb out of the canyon back up to Cabanaconde. This was obviously the most difficult part of the trek, and the fact that we had to do it before breakfast seemed pretty crazy to all of us, but we didn't have a lot of choice. We completed the climb in about two hours, and were treated to a view of the mountains around the canyon with a fresh dusting of snow. This is a picture of the five of us with Verónica, our guide, at the top of the canyon.
It was at about this point that I started to feel ill, so I didn't enjoy the rest of the trip so much. After breakfast in Cabanaconde, we were driven to some hot springs near another town called Chivay, where most of us took a dip (although since I was feeling ill I didn't). After lunch we were taken back to Arequipa.
This evening I'm catching an overnight bus to Lima - it's a 16-hour journey, which I'm not really looking forward to, because I'm still not feeling particularly great. I'm taking it easy this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be OK by this evening.
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