We arrived in Arequipa very early on Friday with lots that we wanted to do in a very short space of time, so we had to crack on!

First we spent some time checking out Arequipa town centre, which is mainly based around the Plaza de Armas, which was very busy with locals sunning themselves and children feeding the pigeons, we could have been in Trafalgar Square! It is beautiful weather here, really hot and sunny in the day and not too cold at night. Arequipa is quite a touristy town, similar to Cuzco with lots of tourist companies offering tours and markets lining the streets.

We went to look around the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, one of the oldest in Peru. It is famous because in the 1580s when it was founded it was full of wealthy nuns from rich Spanish families that generally lived it up inside the convent living to the manner in which they had always been accustomed, some even had slave girls! But by the 1880s a strict Dominican nun came to the convent to straighten them all out!!It was interesting to see how they lived but a very expensive tour, not sure it was worth the 30 soles each!

We also went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos to see the famous frozen Inca maiden "Juanita" who was sacrificed to the mountain gods on the summit of Mount Ampato, which is 6288m above sea level, over 500 years ago.Apparently over 20 sacrificed children have been found in the Andean Mountains since the 1950s, as the Incas believed that only a child sacrifice could appease the mountain gods to prevent catastophes from killing the Inca population. It was always children from royalty that were sacrificed and they had to be perfect in every way. There were also many other artifacts that were found with the bodies that were left as offerings to the gods and to help the children in the next life. Juanita herself was quite eerie to see, she was covered in ice as they keep her at -20oC to preserve her! Apparently all her internal organs are completely preserved and they were able to analyse them to tell what she had eaten and what illnesses she had suffered as a child - pretty amazing!

Saturday and Sunday we went on a tour to the Colca Canyon, which is supposed to be the worlds second deepest canyon with a depth of 3191m. The tour started at 7.30am, when we drove from Arequipa to Chivay which is in the Salinas and Aguada Blanca National Park. On the way we saw vicunus llamas, alpachas, which let us get right up close to them. We went right up to 4920m above sea level to cross the high Andean Plateau before we dropped right back down to Chivay. Our guide was really worried about us suffering with altitude sickness, he must have a lot of people being ill on the tour as he kept going on about coca leaves and altitude sickness pills, we tried to explain we have been at altitude for nearly two months now but he did not really listen!

After lunch we went on a two hour hike into the hills above Chivay to see some Pre Inca tombs, which were completely open and we were pretty disgusted with the guide when he did not show much respect for his dead anchestors and kept picking up the skulls and handling them, but not even very carefully! He was not really the best of guides, he had good knowledge but he really hated the spanish! He kept going on and on about them and how they were to blame for everything! We then went to some hot springs which were great, we even had a beer or two while we were floating around!

At night for dinner we went to see a pena show, which consisted of a Peruvian band and dancers all dressed traditionally and showing us their traditional dances. It was very funny when they got the tourists up to dance, in particular one dance which was supposed to be about Parkinsons disease (which the spanish brought over according to our guide!), which involved one dancer writhing around on the floor whilst the other beat them with a bag full of wood!! At the end Andrew got dragged up for a dance that was sort of a cross between the hokey cokey and the conga, it was hilarous, have a look at the photos for evidence of Andrew?s dancing!! After we left the pena show, there was a real dancing festival going on right outside in the street, with bonfires and traditional dancers, it was really amazing to watch an actual Peruvian celebration.

The next day we were up at 5.30am so we got to the Cruz del Condor for 8am. This is the look out point for us to see the Condors in flight. We were not really expecting to see any but it was so amazing as we were so close to them! There were several Condors cruising around the sky, they are so graceful and so huge! They would swoop down really close to us, almost as if they were showing off for our photos (check out the video!!) The adults are the black and white ones, whilst the teenagers are the fatter browner ones. We stayed there for a few hours watching, before heading back to Chivay and then back to Arequipa.

This morning we went white water rafting for half a day down the Rio Chile. It was so much fun and half a day was not nearly enough, we will definately be doing more of it in New Zealand. We went down mainly class two and three rapids with one class four, which was quite a drop!

Tomorrow we are up early again to start our mission of a journey down to Santiago in Chile. First we have to get a six hour bus to Tacna, then we get a bus whih takes us just across the border into Chile to Arica.From there we need to get a 26 hour bus straight to Santiago, so we can have a few days there before flying onto New Zealand on Sunday! Wish us luck, we are going to have very numb bums by the end of it!!

Lots of Love

S&A