Arequipa
It was quite a relief to get away from our crazy Colca Canyon guide, but a shame to find ourselves in yet another sprawling city. Our hotel was right next to a fly-over, but it was a 1936 villa with a lovely garden, with tables and chairs, which was a nice surprise. The main plaza and surrounding area was actually really nice, and very clean, with a fountain in the middle, a huge cathedral all along one side, some palm trees, and some pedestrianised streets as well. 
We had dinner in a rooftop restaurant which was aptly called 'On the top', at right angles to the cathedral bell towers, and overlooking the plaza. They provided you with ponchos to put on when the night air started to get a bit chilly, and gave us free Pisco Sours. There were two guys playing panpipes and singing Guantanamera, but when we joined in with the singing they soon left. The meal was pretty good, but when one of our friends ordered a crepe suzette for dessert, it came smothered not with grand marnier, but orange marmalade - I suppose it sounds simillar if you say it with a Peruvian accent!

It was nice to have a free day on Monday, and we took the chance to go to the museum to see Juanita the ice maiden, whose frozen mummified body was found near the top of the volcano in 1995, where she had been sacrificed by the Incas over 500 years earlier. There was an interesting display of the artefacts that were found with Juanita, and the other children found on the same mountain. Her cloak was made of the finest Vicuña wool, and was completely undamaged by 500 years in the ice, as were a woven belt (almost identical to the ones the wives still weave for their husbands on Taquile island) and a stripy bag for carrying coca leaves, both made from alpaca wool. There were beautifully crafted tiny statues of people and alpacas, made of gold (for the sun), silver (for the moon) and copper (for Pachamama). It was excellent. 
We were going to go to the Santa Catalina convent museum, but it looked very simillar to the Santa Teresa convent museum that we'd been to in La Paz, and was also really expensive to get into. So we went back to the hotel and had relaxing afternoon, until it was beer o'clock in the garden, and then time to go out for dinner again. Tomorrow we're off to Puerto Inca on the pacific coast, so we'll have driven coast to coast across South America! 
Back to sea level again - hurray!........ Goodnight.