Peru – Arequipa (2,328 Metres)

Day 1 – Getting to Peru

After another nice breakfast, it was time to drag our bags down the hill, leave Bolivia and head to Peru.  At the bus pick-up point we were informed that the coach would not be going to Ariquipa but only as far as the town of Puno across the border as there was some sort of strike going on.

We got on the bus and were only driving for around 15 minutes when we hit the Bolivia border where we had to get off the coach and get stamped out at border control.  From here we had to walk down the road for around 100 metres and get stamped in at the Peru border control, easy!  We now were in Peru and we got back on the coach to continue our journey.

 

 

As we drove around the shores of Lake Titicaca the rain started to come down, but was soon replaced with a snowy landscape that we weren’t expecting.

Two hours later and we found ourselves arriving in Puno, which on first impressions did not look good and we were worried that we were going to be stuck there for the next few days.  At the bus station, we soon discovered that there were plenty of other coach firms going to Arequipa (the bus company we came with just did not seem to go there).  So we were pretty pleased with this and booked a ticket for Arequipa which left in a few hours time.  Whilst we waited we managed to sort out a Sim card for Peru and have a bite to eat.

The bus to Arequipa was supposed to leave around two, but it seems that punctuality in Peru is not quite what it was in Chile/Bolivia and the bus left about ¾ hour late.  Not only was the coach late but it wasn’t that great and was a bit smelly.

Six/seven hours later we arrived in Arequipa around 9pm and quickly managed to find a taxi to take us to our hostel.  The hostel was pretty nice and we had a big room which was situated around a sort of courtyard, the only thing was there were no windows in the room.

As it was getting late we quickly secured our bags and headed out to check out our surroundings. The hostel was in a great area which was about 100 yards from the main plaza and on entering it we were very impressed.  It was a beautiful plaza with a massive cathedral on one side, this plaza could rival anything I have seen in Spain.

After walking through the square, we then wandered around some streets, which had a very nice/Spanish feel about them until we found a bar we liked the look of.  We had a few drinks in the bar to relax after our long bus day before returning back to the hostel for the night.

Day 2 – Walking Tour

After a good nights sleep as we were at a lower altitude we got up and went for breakfast which wasn’t that great.  We then went out and for the first time we could see that the cathedral in the square had a backdrop of a large perfectly cone shaped volcano, from here we went to a large monastery where we hooked up with yet another free walking tour

 

The walking tour started off by taking us to the cathedral in the main square before going through some back streets with beautiful courtyards, it seemed this town was very pretty and warm (300 days of sunshine a year).

We then visited an older church which had both catholic and indigenous carvings on it, by way of trying to convert the locals to Catholicism.  Inside was very pretty and it also had a very interesting painting of the last supper, where Christ was tucking into a guinea pig, again another way of trying to convince the locals that the catholic faith was the right path.

Before going into another pretty courtyard we were given a sample of the local cheese ice-cream, although it did not have cheese in it (got the name by the way its churned), it was really nice as it had cinnamon in it and tasted of Christmas.

 

After the churches, we then headed to the local market which was really well laid out with the various food sections and natural remedy sections.   The guides took us round showing us the various produce before stopping at the juice section. There we dozens of ladies (with heavy eye-shadow) offering fresh fruit juices, so Shell and I got a nice juice with pineapple and some sort of local potato which is allegedly good for your health.  There was an option for frog juice which cures most ailments, but we passed on that one.

 

The guides also took us through the fruit section where they let us try some local fruits that we had not seen before, one that was particularly nice was an apple type of thing that tasted of honeydew melon.

At the end of the tour we were taken to a restaurant that looked over the main plaza where we were treated to a pisco sour drink and given some tips on things to do and places to eat in the town

Once the tour had ended we went to a tourist agency where we booked a couple of trips, one to the nearby Colca Canyon and another for a few days time to the Nazca lines.  The booking took some time to sort out so afterwards we asked the agency where there was a cheap bar, where as it happened turned out to be upstairs on a balcony overlooking the main plaza.

 

 

For the remainder of the afternoon we had a few drinks whilst people watching the passers by in the main square, fighting off jewellery/picture hawkers and being entertained by the odd Peruvian pan-pipe bands.

 

In the evening, we headed back to the nice courtyard where we picked up the walking tour, where we had seen a restaurant that looked nice.  The restaurant was nice but quite expensive, however we thought we would treat ourselves.  We had a couple of local dishes, one being an El Paca (large llama) curry, so as well as being very cute, they are very tasty too!!

We really enjoyed our meal washed down with a nice bottle of Chilean red, before heading back to the hostel for a relatively early night.

Day 3 - Juanita

Today we thought we would check out one of the museums that had been recommended on the walking tour, this was a museum that was dedicated to one of the Inca mummy’s that had been found at the top of one of the surrounding mountains.

We found the museum which was practically opposite our hostel, paid our entrance fee and then sat in yet another lovely courtyard whilst we waited for the English tour to start.

First, we were taken into a small room where we were shown a film which showed the finding and investigations into the Inca mummy known as ‘Juanita’, named after the person that found her.  She was a young (12-14 year old) Inca girl of noble decent that had been walked for around 10 days to the top of a very high mountain and then drugged and sacrificed to appease the gods.  Apparently, the human sacrifices were chosen at birth and far from being scared about it, they considered it as an honour for them and their families as they would be joining the gods as an equal.

After the film, we were then guided around the museum and shown and explained all the various artefacts that were found with Juanita and a few subsequently found other mummies.  The artefacts included the clothing she was found with, small gold figurines that had been buried with the mummies (some of which had been melted by lightening strikes at the top of the mountains) and even the very small basic sandles that Juanita wore on her trek to her death.

At the very end of the tour we then got to see Jaunita herself, who was preserved in a large freezer cabinet.  She is revered as she is the most well preserved mummy that has been discovered so far and she is positioned in the foetal position as the Inca’s believed she was going to be re-born in the gods kingdom.  We were very lucky to have seen her here as she was due to be moved to another museum at the end of the year. This museum had been very interesting and gave us some much needed information on the Inca culture.

 

 

Once we had finished at the museum we headed to the main square and paid off the balance for the trips we had booked the day before and also took the opportunity to check out the very large nativity scene they had constructed in front of the cathedral (getting a lot of xmas trees, decorations and Spanish xmas carols now).

Unfortunately the clouds started coming in and it started to thunder and lightening so we headed to the bar that we had been to the day before.  We sat there for a while and noticed that a Japanese couple on the next table had ordered the Guinea pig local delicacy (Goy) for their late lunch, Shell had a chat to them about it and took the picture bellow.  The next thing we knew, the couple had kindly (or they didn’t like it) gave us a quarter of it to try, honestly apart from being very greasy it did taste exactly like chicken!!

 

Later in the evening we grabbed some more El Paca for dinner before heading back for an early night as we had to pack as we had a very early start the next morning.

Day 4 – Colca Canyon (4,910 Metres)

It was a very early start at 3.20am so we did our last bit of packing before handing our luggage to be stored at the hostel whilst we went on the trip to Colca Canyon.

We were picked up by mini-bus and then driven around town whilst they picked up more passengers, unfortunately some were annoying young American’s that talked crap for most of this trip.  We then headed out of town and we were soon climbing high up into the mountains round winding roads until we got to the highest point of 4,910 metres.

From there we then headed down into the canyon proper which was touted as being the deepest in the world, although our enthusiastic tour guide pointed out that it wasn’t, that honour goes to somewhere in China.

After around an hour of driving we were then taken to a town where we stopped and were taken to a small place for breakfast, which was pretty basic unless you were prepared to pay for eggs!  We stopped here for around ½ hour before being taken to the town’s main square which was pretty quaint with an old church next to it.

 

We then travelled for another couple of hours through the canyon which was quite impressive (bigger than the grand canyon) stopping off at various viewpoints to take pictures along the way.

 

Passing through a large tunnel through the mountain we continued for another hour until we reached a viewpoint where we were supposed to spot condors.  However, the condor’s seemed to be on holiday as there were none to be seen, fortunately we had seen some in Chile so we weren’t too disappointed.

 

Going back the way we came we stopped off at another viewpoint where we all got to try some native cactus, which surprisingly tasted of a kind of sour kiwi fruit.  We also had a chance to take some more pictures which included llama’s grazing nearby.

 

From this viewpoint, we then headed to another town an hour or so away where we stopped for lunch.  The lunch was a large buffet affair, which was in fact very good as it had a large number of local dishes we could try.  We really filled up as you could go up with your plate as many times as you liked.

Feeling very stuffed we then headed back through the valley to a place where you could either go to the natural spring or go zip lining.  Shell and I were tired and didn’t fancy either so we found a small little stall nearby where we had a couple of drinks, whilst we waited for the others to do these activities.

 

For the final stop of the trip we headed back to the highest point of the canyon to another viewpoint that had lots of stone piles all around the landscape where we took some more pics.  In honesty it was quite a long day just travelling around in a mini-bus and we weren’t that impressed with it, despite some fantastic scenery.

 

After this last stop we then had a very long drive back to Arequipa where we were dropped off around the corner from the main square.  We went back to bar overlooking the square for one final beer before leaving the town.

 

We then went back to the hostel to collect our bags before catching a taxi to the bus station.  At the bus station, we collected our bus tickets and paid the local tax before waiting for our bus to board.

 

 

 Shell had done her homework and had found the best coach company to go with and we were very pleased when we bordered the coach, it was very pristine and was like a 1st class plane cabin.  We settled down and was given an evening meal before doing a bit of reading and then settled down for sleep as we headed into the night and on to Nazca.