So we arrived to Arequipa in the evening after dark. The bus ride from Puno was around 5 hours. When we arrived we walked outside to find a taxi. The hostel told us the ride should cost 6 Soles (U$D1=2.8 soles, two things about this comment is I love how the abbreviate the US Dollar in South America, U$D, second the symbol for the sol is S/.). Well the guy at the taxi stand in the parking lot of the bus terminal told us 8 soles and then I noticed less reputable/cheaper looking taxis waiting out on the main street. Low and behold it cost only 5 soles to get out to our hostel. When we received the directions to get to the hostel, it said the hostel was not in the middle of town but the place had pretty good ratings so we decided to go. The drive from the city center was no more then 10 minutes but when we arrived it felt like we were in a different place. This hostel was in a really nice suburb of Arequipa. The hostel, Arequipay Backpackers, was brand new and only reopened about 3 weeks earlier. Literally when we walked in to the hostel it felt like walking in to the living room of your rich friend's house whose parents have left for the weekend. There was a huge billards table, large screen TV, brand-new kitchen, movie room with state of the art stereo and another flat screen, there was a room was a PS3 and a third flat screen, a swimming pool (which wasn't finished yet), a grill area, large backyard, and more.
Arequipa's Cathedral, with its massive intimidating White Stone Walls
Night #1
The next morning I woke up feeling pretty crummy (and well for the next 24 hours I was sick) and after a brief visit in to town with some fellow travelers from our hostel to visit the tourist information center, iPeru, I decided I didn´t feel like doing anything for the rest of the day so we headed back to the hostel and just sat a round watching movies and shooting pool all day...DAY NUMBER 1 WASTED.
The White Stone Archs that surrond the entire Plaza de Armas (except the Cathedral above), at night it is all well lit up and amazing
Night #2The next day I woke up much more refreshed, unfortunatley Emily did not. So the whole second day Emily spent back in the hostel. I decided to go out and see the sites around the city (which turned out to be only really two places) and look for a possible tour to go to the Colca Canyon. I headed into town with the same people from the day before and first went to the famous Santa Catalina Monastery. The monastery has existed since the 16th century and began as a monastery for wealthy families in Arequipa to send there daughters to become nuns. Evidently, wealthy nuns knew how to party. Monastery basically survived by the fact that all of the nuns who entered had large dowries paid for by their fathers. They threw huge elegent parties, owned slaves (which was mostly forbidden in the Spanish Empire), and some even got pregnant. Well during the 19th century the Pope heard about the problems at this monastery and sent a new head nun who reformed it and made extremely strict rules to follow. The nun convent still operates today but the majority of the old monastery was forced to be open to the public in the 1970s. The place is an amazing maze of colored streets (a small village inside the city) and courtyards. With hundreds of bedrooms and other things people would need for daily life from the 1500s through the 1970s. The rest of the day our group just went around walking through this 'white-city' (which we later heard was better then the white-city of Sucre, Bolivia, the constitutional capital of Bolivia. Which we chose to skip over because of time). The rest of the city had gorgeous architecture that really displayed the wealth of the city through the ages. The entire main city square (which throughout Peru the main city square is always called Plaza de Armas, compared to Argentina where the main city squares are always called Plaza de San Martin), which was named a UNESCO site, is a beautiful aray of white columns and arches dominated by the white stoned carved exterior of the city's Cathedral. Several other building both churches, banks, and government officesthroughout the downtown have amazing white stone carved facades. The city is truly amazingly beautiful and surronding the city are several (5 I think) volcanoes that truly dominate any outlook of the city. The rest of the day was mainly spent either going for some Doner Kebab (what the Turk's call a Gyro, but in my opinion a lot better) and stopping by a cafe in the artisy district of downtown...SO DAY 2 COMPLETED, and a WASTE FOR EMILY.
Next is a selection of photos from the Monastery...
Sorry for the sideways photo the computer is not turning my photos
View from the top of the monastery over Arequipa and one of the 5 volcanos that surrond the city
Day 3 in our hostel, aka Rich Friend's House, was the first day Emily and I were both feeling well enough t adventure out in to town togther. We spent the afternoon just wondering around downtown so Enily could see the Plaza de Armas, the main square, and also exploring some other stuff like the riverfront and pedestrian mall. The evening was like the past two evening spent being sucked in to the wonders of our hostel. And making some pretty damn delicious Shakshuka (Also for you readers from Minneapolis, we also made some pretty damn good Jose's)!...SO THE THIRD DAY WAS A PRETTY PRODUCTIVE DAY IN AREQUIPA.
Amazing/Beautiful Stone Carved Facade of a Small Church
More Stone Carved Facades (this one is of a bank)
Night #4Day 4 was actually spent doing what we originally intended to do Arequipa. Heading to the Colca Canyon, which earlier in our travels had been recommended as a really cool place to go. When we got to Arequipa we found out we had two options to do the canyon. The first was to do a self-guided 2 day/1 night trek through the canyon and the other option was to go with a tour company out to the canyon for a day. Well after Emily and I both got a little under the weather in back to back days, the fact we were starting to worry about time, and also because our next stop was going to be Cusco and we were about to start a 5 day trek anyway we decided to take the lazy way out and go on a day bus tour. Needless to say we regretted this but in the ended we still got to see the canyon. The hike if we would have done it would have been a 7 hour first day hike which ended in a descent in to the canyon and the next morning you ascend back up on the other side of the canyon. The bus tour was much different. We were picked up at 3am from our hostel and began a 3 hour bus ride along windy roads out to the Canyon. After eating breakfast our next stop was to a famous spot where Andean Condors can be viewed every morning. This in the end is what both Emily and I thought as the most impressive part of the trip. Seeing the condors, both adults and children, soar over our heads was amazing. Also because the condors don't really fly out of the canyon as much as float up from the hot air streams that go through the canyon they get really close to the viewing point and at points soar only a few dozen meters above your head or just in front of you. Next we began a a bus ride to a series of miradors (lookouts) over the canyon. The canyon is not exactly what we expected. We were kind of suspecting much similar to the Grand Canyon (which even though neither of us have been to we have seen more then enough pictures and movies shot there). Even though this canyon was twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, its about 1,200 meters deep, it wasn't spread out like the Grand Canyon is. It looks much more like a river valley but is technically catagorized as a canyon. It was pretty cool to see along the side of the canyon not only Inca Agricultural Terraces but to also see Incan graves which were (at least for the wealthy and royal) done in the canyon walls (or at other Incan sites we have witnessed along a mountain/hill side) by diggiing out a small cave and then enclosing it with adobe bricks. They are all sitll visable today form the side of the road. Besides the few lookouts we also stopped in two villages. The first stop was to an extremely small village an impressive church. The church like many other churches throughout several small villages in the Colca Valley was built by the Spanish to try to bring a dominate form of Christianity during Colonialism to the region which still to this day mixs both Catholicism and Incan/pre-Incan traditions. They weren't to succesful but now adays thes giant impressive churches stand in the middle of every small 200 person village in the valley whose houses are not much more then adobe brick. Most of the churches were actually badly damaged in an earthquake in the 1980s but have been helped rebuilt by private donations from Spain. Our final visit and for a late lunch was to the largest village in the valley, Chivay. The village is in the shallowest part of the canyon. After having lunch we headed back 3 hours to Arequipa which after arriving at the hostel we relaxed a few hours before heading to the bus terminal to take an overnight bus to Cusco (we wisely pre-booked the bus ticket so we wouldn't get sucked in to the hostel for one more night).
Next is a selection of photos from the Condor look out (I have many more but these are my best shots)...
Following is random pictures from the rest of the Colca Canyon tour...
Lago in the middle of the Canyon
Great view of a large part of the canyon
Another great view of the canyon with Inca terraces everywhere
One of the dozen plus White Large churches the dot the canyon in every small village
The interior
Baby alpaca (its fur was really really soft) and a little girl in traditional dress
On our return trip to Arequipa form Colca Canyon with two of the snow capped Volcanos in the background
Overall our stay in Arequipa was really relaxed we knew we are in a rush to make it to Bogata, Columbia but I think we both needed the days to rest and we kind of just hit the right hostel at the right time. For those who think it was only us being lazy bums and getting sucked in to this hostel, it is not true. It was not only us that this phenominum was happening to but people we had also met at the hostel were staying up to a week and one couple 10 days if not more for truly no reason. Just because this hostel was basically the perfect place to be if you needed a break.
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