Arequipa - Santa Catalina Monastery

As soon as we arrived in Arequipa we were approached by a small Chinese looking guy in a pin-stripe suit that looked as if it had been meant for a six-foot bloke then had the arm and trouser ends sawn off. ‘Frank’ quickly tried to establish if we had accommodation or tours booked.

We ended up following Frank to a budget hotel, as we had requested. 15 soles a night and only one street away from the Plaza de Armas, Frankie-boy had done good. Frank proceeded to try and hard sell everything from a Colca Canyon tour, to bus tickets and accomodation in Puno, to coke and weed.

As it seemed he could get anything, I asked him if he could source me a black dwarf.

Frank didn’t seem to realise that I was taking the piss and thought for a minute.

‘…not a problem. My friend has girls, and one of them I think is Brazilian, quite dark and very small.’

Frank left his mobile number and we promised to call if we needed a tour, drugs or diminutive prostitutes.

The next day we took a wander around the Santa Catalina nunnery. The place is like a huge maze, and quite beautiful to look at. You quite quickly get an idea of what makes the nuns tick - they love bread and hate the J-man; half of the rooms had bread ovens in, with the other half containing vignettes of Jesus suffering in different ways, in various states of undress, with differing wounds. Nice.

We went to a tour company and found a suitable two day excursion to the Colca Canyon that was light on hiking, but ultimately ended up getting it for 5 soles less after about twenty minutes haggling with ‘our friend’ Frank. He seemed a bit annoyed after that so I made a mental that the door to drugs and dwarf-whores was now most likely closed.