Arequipa; rocked by volcanic eruptions and earth quakes nearly every century since the Spanish arrived in 1540, Arequipa doesn't lack for drama. The perfect cone-shaped volcano of El Misti (5822m) is flanked to the left by raged Chachani (6075m) and to the right by Pichu Pichu (5571m). Peru's second largest city is whitewashed in volcanic stone in a majestic mountainous setting.

Wednesday 23rd March

We arrived in Arequipa at 5am and got a taxi straight to our hostel, luckily there was a room available for us straight away so we checked in, had some breakfast and got some sleep. We even watched an old episode of Shameless that was on the tv in our room!

We got up around midday, (there is a primary school right next to the hostel and lunch hour woke us up!) we showered and ventured out for a wonder. The weather was good (finally some sun!)

We stopped for lunch which was a disappointment then booked an open top bus tour for tomorrow. We tried to visit an exhibit of 'Juanita' the Ice Princess - the frozen Inca maiden sacrificed on the summit of Ampato over 500 years ago but she wasn't on display as she is preserved from January to April!!

We headed back to the hostel and the boys bought some DVD's on the way back, so they spent the evening watching DVD's while I uploaded photos! We ordered a Chinese (£3.50 for rice, lemon chicken and spring rolls - bargain!) then went to bed!

Thursday 24th March

We got up at 8 and headed straight to the main plaza to meet for our bus tour. It was pretty boring - 4 hours! I can't tell you much about the tour because I wasn't listening! We had missed breakfast so were starving so as soon as the bus stopped we went to find food. We stopped a few times but we decided not to get off as the places had an entrance fee and we didn't want to pay it! We got back to Arequipa about 1.30 and wondered round to get some lunch.. Guess what we found?! Yup.. A burger king! So after that we got some more DVD's and headed back to the hostel! We watched 127 hours, then ordered a pizza and watched The Ugly Truth then went to bed!

Friday 25th March

After a lie in we got ready and packed our bags (no tantrums this time! No hangover!) we booked our bus to Ica for tonight. Then the boys went to Burger King while I sorted some stuff out. I spent the afternoon uploading photos etc while the boys watched more DVD's! We had another Chinese takeaway before going to the bus station for our 10 hour journey to Ica!

We wish we'd had some more time in Arequipa as there are tours that visit Colca Canyon (The worlds second biggest Canyon after Cotahuasi Canyon which is only 163m deeper) but the tours are a few days long and time is getting a bit tight to fit in everything we want to do in South America!