I slept the whole journey of the night bus and we arrived early at 7:45am, we grabbed our belongings and made our way to our private mini bus to take us to our next hotel. Sadly the others on our tour didn't have a great sleep but it was their first bus I guess Ed and I are just used to them now!! We were gradually getting higher and had to start acclimatising this meant trying to drink at least 3 litres of water a day!!

We grabbed breaky at the hotel in Arequipa and checked into our rooms. We volunteered to have the room with single beds as the others are older!! After we freshened up we headed out on a 2-3 hour walk of the city. It is the second largest city in Peru but has only a 10th of Limas population!!

We visited an old church and witnessed mass before wandering the small streets and meeting our first llama!! We finished our tour in the main square where we were able to walk around an old monastery! After we went to a huge market where we were set the challenge of buying a fruit we had never seen or eaten before, there were plenty to choose from but we also had to communicate to the Spanish seller and ask where it was from. We chose a star fruit and Eds I cannot remember the name! It was a fun but difficult challenge! Once again the meat section freaked me out yucky!!

We separated from the group and carried on wandering the streets and found a restaurant where Peruvians were queuing to eat. We thought what's the fuss so had to try! We were fed gourmet sandwiches!! Yum!

We then ventured into different tour shops to look at bus trips etc but they said they have to be done within the other countries!! We witnessed yet another protest which they love!! We also saw lots of ladies with baby llamas which was sad and a man with a Peruvian dog. It was disgustingly hairless and would not stop yapping away!!

We got back to the hotel and sat on the terrace with the German couple and we listened to all the places they had travelled it was incredible!! Katerine is so well travelled and told us her favourite place-Burma (Myanmar)!! We have to go!!!

Another day with a bad belly wasn't fun and meant I was continuously hungry!
We headed to dinner with just Pedro this evening as the others did their own thing. We had great conversation and headed back to pack we got to bed fairly early for our early start tomorrow!

On the 5th of June we hopped on a private bus very early to head to the valleys. We left our big bags and took a small pack! I had a very bad nights sleep as I kept having nightmares that the volcano was erupting! We were continuously told to drink and had to make so many stops for us to go to the toilet it was silly haha!! We grabbed coca chocolates and sweets to help us acclimatise too. We had many stops to see different packs of llamas and alpacas!! We stopped in a very small community where we tried coca tea and had a wander around their local stalls! Being so high today at 4900m above sea level our ears kept popping so the sweets helped!

I ran to pee and got about 10 metres and was so out of puff!! We had fantastic views of the area and took lots of photos!! We finally made it to Chivay, checked in and enjoyed lunch! It was a buffet so we had the opportunity to try alpaca and other traditional dishes like the hot bell peppers stuffed with meat yum yum!!

We were very full! We headed back to the hotel grabbed our swimmers and headed towards the nearby hot thermal springs!! We had fantastic views whilst we bathed away in 40 degree water!! We had to walk back up the mountain to get back to the mini bus. We were not used to this altitude and were struggling to make our way to the top!

We watched the sun set in the last pool and then ventured back to the hotel late!! We met everyone for dinner later on and enjoyed a light dinner! I had gorgeous quinoa with alpaca and chicken. After dinner we watched as 2 Peruvian dancers took over the dance floor and singers sang traditional songs! It was lovely!!

As usual both Ed and I were picked to join in which was comical for everyone else!! I had to wear a thick poncho and after dancing around for 5 minutes it felt as if I'd ran for miles!! A particular dance was called yellow fever where they used to whip the illness out of you this was very funny to watch!!! Haha!!!

We headed back after dinner and tried our best to sleep but because of the altitude you wake up very regularly and feel achey!!

On the 6th of June we woke up early to head to the Colca Canyon! We stopped at a beautiful old church which had original painted walls, stunning to see! Outside were eagles that had been caught and clipped so they can't escape it was sad. The locals were trying to make us pay for pictures with them but we refused!!!! They climb to grab eggs from their nests for tourism it's disgusting!!

I had a headache from the altitude and felt so tired! We stopped at a view point to see two old ladies with their per llamas wanting again money for pictures! I refused again!!

Once we got to the dusty canyon we walked for 40 minutes to the view point where we saw a handful of Condors swooping through the Canyon!! We saw two girls we met in Lima and explored the old town with which was nice! Ed got some brilliant pictures and we enjoyed watching them for an hour!

On the way back we stopped at different look outs and tried some local fruits yummy!! We learnt so much from our driver about the people from the valleys and how they even tried to shape their heads differently! The journey home we fell asleep for most of it and decided we would have free time this evening to do as we wanted! When we arrived back at the hotel we relaxed and later went for another mamut gourmet sandwich!! We finally booked our stay in Rio and have a definite plan for the rest of our trip which feels good!!

The next day we had once again a very early start and boarded a plane for Cuzco!!