Arequipa to Cusco ⇒
We had a very enjoyable day in Arequipa. It is a fantastic city--quite safe and very pretty. We went on a tour of the Santa Catalina Convent which was very interesting. In its day it was home to 500 people (200 nuns plus servants, children). It is made out of the lava rock but in the 70s they painted it blue and a sort of rusty colour. The nuns were typically the second born daughters who were sent there to pray for the sins of the family...boy we second borns always get the short end of the stick! OUr tour guide Mariella was very nice and informative.
After the convent we went for empanadas for lunch then to a museum to see Juanita the ice maiden who was brought down from a volcano in 1998. She was a human sacrifice to the mother earth in hopes of convincing her to stop volcanos and earthquakes in the area. Juanita was very well preserved. They reckon she was 12 years old when she sacrificed herself.
That night we had to move from our lovely hotel to a different one because Grandmother's House didn't have enough rooms for our group of 34 people. So we took taxis (which is an experience in itself because the lanes are really only guidelines and it's not unusual to see cars turning left out of the right hand lane. If you are a pedestrian you better run for your life when you cross the street because if you don't you will be squished like grape!). Anyway...we took taxis to a less desirable part of town to a much less desirable hotel The Hotel Premier. I didn't take my socks off the whole time! Well it was only for a short sleep because we got up at 5:00 the next morning. Imagine getting up two hours earlier than I do for work while I'm on holiday!
We took taxis to another hotel where we caught a charted coach for our drive to the COlca Canyon. This was my favourite day so far. We drove into the Andes over a 4900m pass where we all got out...talk about feeling the altitude! THen we continued through to the Colca Valley which was the most incredible scenery we've seen so far. The mountainsides are all terraced (pre-Inca) for the irrigation of the farms. Pretty amazing to see. We went on the rthe Cruz del Condor and saw a couple of condors floating on the thermal air. The Colca Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world (deeper than the Grand Canyon) but our guide said it's difficult to compare it to the Grand Canyon because of how the canyons were formed (Grand by erosion and Colca by the growing mountains). Very dramatic scenery as well.
After Colca we drove back the way we had come and went to a lovely town called Chivay where we stayed at a very nice hotel (quite a relief after the night before!). We went to a public outdoor hot pool and watched the sun setting over the Andes before the sky filled with stars. Ahhhh so this is Peru!
Next day we had a very long drive to Cusco through some very dramatic scenery. We arrived in Cusco at about 4 in the afternoon. Cusca, the Inca capital, is another fantastic city. It is so beautiful and I won't bother to describe it so you'll just have to wait for the photos!
Today running some errands in preparation for the Inca Trail in two days and visiting some of the amazing museums and Inca sights.