On approaching Arequipa we were disheartened as it looked like a sprawling dirty city. However when we arrived to the centre we walked into the most spectacular huge colonial plaza. The surrounding 5 or 6 blocks all around it were equally stunning with spanish architecture. This was the jewel of Peru. That night exploring the streets of sophisticated restaurants we found Don and Soph and ate a delicious pizza. It felt like we could have been in a sophisticated historic city in Spain, we loved it immediately. The next day we visited the monestry which had brightly coloured walls and courtyards with plants and trees within them. It was a photographers dream. Next we visited a museum where the remains of a sacrificed young girl from the inca times is kept, found at the top of the volcano overlooking the city just a decade ago. She was very much in tact due to the freezing conditions up there, but had been exposed from recent volcanic activity melting the ice.

The next morning we took a bus to Cabanaconde to do a 3 day trek into the Colca canyon, the 2nd deepest canyon in the world, twice as deep as the grand canyon. We set off after a big lunch with our friends Don and Soph for a 4 hour walk down to the bottom. We were greeted there by a woman named Gloria who had been spying on us coming down through binoculars ready to intercept us and take us to her hostal. A good business woman since there were only 2 or 3 hostals in the little settlement. Her littele hostal was like a garden of paradise surrounded by lush vegetation. We sat there drinking cold beer and admiring the views inside the canyon. It was spectacular and how she managed to get a fridge there, god and maybe a few mules only knows. She served up a pretty good dinner and breakfast too all for 3quid incl bed.

The next day we walked 3 more hours up the other side, across then back down to another little settlement called Oasis. As it´s name suggests it was lush with trees and pools. The sun was beating down hard and we couldn´t wait to dive into them. There were several options of places to stay, all much alike and all serving the same aweful meals with warm beer, it was a little disappointing after Gloria´s but the scenery made up for it.

The next morning was el scorchio so we relaxed by the pool before hiring mules to take us up and out of the canyon. The path was steep and narrow and we were racked with guilt for the poor beasts. Back in Cabanaconde we stopped for a delicious soup before catching the 6hr bus journey back to Arequipe. Unfortunately this involved hours sitting next to a 1 yr old hyper child being fed bottles of coca cola in an attempt to quieten her!