Well after a rather uneventful 10 hours on a bus from Nazca we arrived in Arequipa.

Confusing thought of the day:
Is it certain nationalities that are particularly rude or just insensitive to other people?
It appears to be a specific type of tourist that pretty much think the world revolves around them. Two women on our bus had obviously decided they weren't happy with their seats (one was actually in ours and seemed peeved when we asked her to move), which were good ones and ended up making the bus leave about half an hour late while they 'negotiated' with the bus company.

Arequipa is a city of over 1 million people at over 2300m above sea level. It is here we are planning to start to aclimatise ourselves before heading to Cuzco and the Inca Trail. After arriving at our hostal, recommended to us by our new friend and now travelling partner for part of the next few weeks, Helen from England, we headed off to explore the town.

After a coffee and muffin it was decided that as it was my birthday I got to choose what it was we did. In this case I have kind of lucked out as I figured that since it was my birthday in Australia yesterday (being 14 hours behind here) I got to celebrate it there and then here :)

It was then off to book our Colca Canyon tour. We decided that an overnight tour into the Colca Canyon specifically to see the Andean Condors was going to be easier than trying to work out the buses and accomodation. After booking we have finally worked out why our $10US notes were not being accepted. Turns out Peruvians wont accept old US bills, even if they are stamped as ok from Ecuador. Tour sorted and we had the afternoon to ourselves.

We wandered into the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a monestary, a whole block taken up by almost a city within a city, and considered a look around but we ended up deciding against it as it appeared to still be under renovations and the cost, although not too expensive we couldn´t work out if it was worth it or not. We also have a whole day once back from the Colca Canyon to have a look.

It was off to the Santurious Andinos Museum where they display artefacts and objects from the Inca´s, and even a mummy sacrifice. The mummified sacrifice was of a 12-14 year old girl, named Juanita. She is called the ´Ice Princess´ and was found after an earthquake and subsequent volcanic eruption melted the snow around El Misti volcano. She was one of 4 child sacrifices found on that volcano and the only one to be fully intact including all her internal organs which scientists are now studying to determine what she last ate, any diseases she may have had and her physiology.

After a short 20 minute documentary on the Inca´s and child sacrifices we were led into the museum and given a guided tour culminating in being able to see Juanita. She is on show at this museum for 9 months of the year and is kept in a controlled temperature kind of tank.  For the other 3 months they display one of the other child sacrifices. Very interesting and well worth the entrance fee. Unfortunately as we are finding out in a lot of places in Peru we werent able to take any photographs of anything inside the museum.
It was a little disconcerting when they said we had to leave our bags at the entrance but good when we got everything back.

The entire town of Arequipa is centered around the Plaza de Armas, main square. There is an amazing amount of old beautifully maintained buildings, which Phil is having a good time photographing.

We then headed out for some tea at Patio del Ekeko, a very nice restaurant. After running into Helen (we´re trying to work out who is stalking who) we invited her to join us and had some of the best cake so far in Peru. A couple of cocktails later it was time for an early one as we were being picked up early by the tour company.

And off to the Colca Canyon we go. . . .