We arrived in Arequipa (pronounced Ary-Key-Pa) a few days ago, in the early morning, after a 9 hour bus ride from Nazca which took us over and into the the Andes mountains. Thankfully the long distance coaches are very good over here and it is pretty much like travelling in business class - at least you are able to sleep to some extent. Arequipa is the second city of Peru, though after 2 days here we are firmly of the opinion that it should be first. People here are much more organised than anywhere else in Peru and so far the City seems to be much more beautiful than Lima. In fact it would rate high in the top cities anywhere in the world. It is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes which are around 20,000ft above sea level. The town itself is perched at about 11,000 ft, high in the Andes mountains. The local people are fiercley proud of their City (rightly so) and would love to have independance from the rest of Peru. On our first day we took a stroll around the general centre of the town with Susanah and Juan from Spain, who we met in Nasca. The main Plaza (yes, you guessed correctly, it's called the Plaza de Armas like everywhere in Peru!) is one of the most beautiful that we have seen so far. The architecture of the area is stunning, with a strong Spanish feel and the buildings are made out of the local volcanic rock, called Sillar. They maintain a beautiful white colour - none of the polluted facades you get in the UK. In the afternoon we visited the Santa Catalina convent/monastery, that is still used today. It is so large it has it's own streets and in fact constitutes a citadel. In the 1500's the wealthy Spanish families used to send their second daughters to the convent for education. However, they arrived with their servants and all the trappings of their affluent Spanish lifestyles and continued to live the highlife. When a new Mother Superior arrived from Italy she put a stop to the whole thing, sent home the servants and any girls who did not want to stay and promptly closed the convent to all outsiders - for 391 years! During that time no-one entered the convent (except for new novices) and provisions were only received through bolt holes in the walls so that the nuns could never be seen. Eventually in 1970, the town Mayor put a stop to it and opened a large proportion of the convent for public viewing. It is probably the most perfectly preserved citadel in the world and perfectly shows how life in a medieval town would have been would have been 400 years ago. Take a look at the photos and you will see how much like an old Spanish town it is, not only in the architecture but also in colour. It was an incredibly tranquil place and amazing to step back 400 years. In the evening we went out to a traditional Peruvian restaurant to try a few of the local delicacies. Chris being the adventurous type had to try the local dish Cuy Chatao - Baked Guinea Pig. It arrived on the plate looking like roadkill as it was clompletely squashed (though it's head and teeth were still in tact!). It's cooked by frying the underside in oil and a hot baking stone cooks the top and flattens it into the process. To all of our surprise for a change it tasted like pork not chicken - though that was little consolation to Susanah who is a vegetarian! So remember, when we get home, lock up your pets!!!!! On our second day, we had arranged for a local guide to take us on a private tour of the City and the surrounding points of interest - this took 7 hours and cost us the princely sum of 20 pounds for the 4 of us. The whole tour was in Spanish and whilst we were able to understand quite a portion of the information both of us were very grateful for the frequent translations from Susanah and Juan. One of the first points of interest was a closer view of the peaks which overlook the City - one of which, Misty, is still considered to be an active Volcano (and is where they get the volcanic rock from for local construction). The highest peak reaches just over 6000 meteres (20,000ft). We were able to reach 3,300 metres. At this height it was noticeably cooler and a little more difficult to breath deeply as the air is so fine - but the views over the City were stunning. The rest of the day was a general tour around the City and a visit to an Alpaca farm. There are 4 types of animals that fall into this category and we got to take a close look at all of them - Chris even trying to incite one of them into a spitting frenzy! The items on sale were beautiful and much cheaper than at home, though there was a cape on sale made of the finest wool possible for US$1700 - it was at this point that Chris started to sweat profusely in case I took him up on his offer of a local purchase for my birthday! I am not that cruel. For the next three days we will be taking a 4 wheel drive to the site of the Colca Canyon which is 3200m (10,500ft) deep making it twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the US. We've arranged a guide to take us in and we hope to see the Condors and local wildlife. Once at the canyon we will be trekking to the bottom and we will be using donkeys to carry our packs and camping at the bottom. We will let you know how we get on when we get back..........if we get back!!