Bueno Dias! ⇒

The last few days have been relatively quiet. In Arequipa, we went on a fabulous tour of a convent that was founded about 500 years ago! And there are still nuns living the same life now! It is a huuuge convent with its own streets and squares. They lead a very hard life, with very little contact with the outside world and very little conversation inside...I would have made a lousy nun! After that we went to see Juanita. She was a 12 year old virgin sacrifice to the gods. She was discovered a few years ago when a local volcano uncovered her. It is quite amazing to see how well preserved she was. It is also unbelievable to fathom how they got her there. This volcano is over 6000 meters high and they only had basic foot coverings! We figure she walked up and was sacrificed up there. The rest of the day was just wandering around Arequipa and checking out the scenery and the shops. Unfortunately, the nice hotel we were staying at did not have rooms for us that night so we had to switch to another hotel. Added to that, there was a miners conference in town so all the good hotels were taken...so we went to a scummy hotel at the bad end of town...not nice! But we survived by not spending much time there.

Then it was off to the condors of the Colca Canyon. Apparently there are many condors in this area, but they must have been on holiday the day we were there as we only saw a few, and they were all far away darn it! Hopefully one of Christines pictures turns out. The canyon though, is very impressive. At one time it was the deepest canyon in the world at over 4000 meters!! After that we went to sooth our aching muscles in the hot springs at Chivey. Ahhhhhhhhhh, did that ever feel good! The water was hot and the beer was cold. All my aches went away after about an hour and a half there. We stayed long enough to see many, many stars, none of which I recognized as the stars are different in the southern hemisphere.

Yesterday was our longest driving day yet...about 11 hours with several stops. I did not enjoy it very much, although for the last half the scenery was spectacular. We finally arrived in Cusco, which may be the prettiest city in Peru. Its main square, the Plaza dArmas, looks awesome at night! We had a quick orientation tour and then grabbed an excellent meal at Macondor. Today we are going run a few errands...buy some supplies for the hike and see a few museums.

Tomorrow we head off to the Sacred Valley and then.....the Inca Trail!!!!!!!!! We may be able to update after the hike, it depends on what time we get back and how tired we are. If not, we will update you after we get back from the Amazon.

Adios!!

p.s. If you are wondering why there are no apostrophes in this entry, the reason is that that key is not working!!