This past weekend I went to Arequipa. It is the second largest city in Perú and is in the southern part of the country. I went with my friends Claire and Sam. We flew down after classes on Thursday and stayed until yesterday afternoon. Upon arrival we needed to find a tour group and a hostel. We ended up finding a hostel and then they found a tour group for us (win). The tour was for Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world. After we were settled in we went to explore the city. We found a Mexican restaurant and also ended up running into a procession for Señor de los Milagros (for more information on this event click on this link -> http://www.livinginperu.com/blogs/features/181). It was a great experience to stumble upon it.
The tour agency picked us up at 3:30 am, yep 3:30 AM. The reason? Because it took 3 hours to drive to the canyon and then we stopped at some tourist places before we started our hike down the canyon. The picture is from the Cruz del condor in the Colca Valley. You may not be able to see it well but there is a condor flying, a little below center of the picture. Fun fact: the Andean condor has the largest wing span of any land bird. This time of year is supposed to be when they are a little sparse, because of breeding and what not, but we were able to see almost ten of them, and they were amazing!
After that stop, we headed to the top of the trail and waited for our guides, Sandro and Renzo, to show us the way. There were 12 of us in the trekking group: the 3 of us from the US, 1 girl from Argentina, 2 girls from Austria, 2 girls from Switzerland, 1 girl from England, and 1 guy and a couple from Germany. We were very lucky and had a really great group to spend 2 days trekking with. We spent 7 hours the first day trekking down the mountain to get to the Oasis where we spent the night. After 4 hours, we reached our stop for lunch and then rested a bit before heading out again. By the time we reached the Oasis my feet were covered in blisters and my body hated me, but there was a pool so we cleaned up and then rested until dinner. After dinner I slept because I was exhausted and we had to be up at 5 am to start the trek back up the canyon. Getting to the top was the best and we were able to meet up with 2 boys, Jonathan and Sean, from our program that were on a different tour. We ate breakfast and headed on our way back to Arequipa, with stops at some hot springs, a national park to see alpacas and vicuñas, and a lookout to see all the volcanoes in the area. It was quite an experience and an exhausting one at that. Oh and the food they served us during these 2 days is probably the best food I have ever had in my life, at least it felt that way at the time since we were so drained.
Once back at our hostel we showered and went out again for more Mexican food. Next day we lounged around chatting with other Americans we met and then flew back here to Lima. I wanted to walk around Arequipa and take pictures but that didn’t happen, good thing I’ll be stopping through there again at the end of the semester on my way to Puno and Lake Titicaca. Anyway that is all for now. Pretty busy week this week and then I have a 10k race on Saturday. I’ll let you know how it goes. <3 aj
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