Colca Canyon, Areqipa
When got into Arequipa and had a look around the town - it was good to be out the rain and we had definitely gone into a different, drier climate! The city is really interesting - overloked by El Misti volcano (extinct) and has some good places to walk around and see. We went to the Santa Catalina convent where we met up with Pepo and Josephine who were on the Inca trail trek with us. The convent is fascinating, it is in the middle of the city but was totally closed off to outsiders until 1969. The nuns inside were famous for being un-nun like and holding parties and musical recitals even though they had taken the vow of silence. Eventually, however, the fun stopped and the convent became an extremely austere place. It is still a working convent, although the nuns live in a separate area to where the tourists are allowed to go.
Thats night we went to a restaurant where we again bumped into Pepo and Josephine! We had some great llama which I unfortunately reacted badly to - we ended up having to cancel our planned trek through the Colca canyon the next morning. We eventually got on a bus tour of the canyon a day later and, although we are not ususally fans of bus tours, this one turned out to be good. We drive through the mountains, stopping off at a hot spring and sleeping over in a small town close to the canyon. The next morning we got up ealry and drove around to some of the famous viewing spots the canyon.
We also managed to catch some condors circling on the thermals created by the mroning air warming up in the canyon. They re amazing to see and we managed to catch some good photos of them (by "we" I mean Lindy....! for some reason, I could quite get them!).
Got back to Arequipa and met up for a meal and drinks with; guess who - Pepo and Josephine, and Dan and Amanda - another couple who were on the Inca trail with us.
