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After 10 hours on the overnight bus, we arrived in the early hours at the beautiful city of Arequipa. It's nestled among three volcanoes - el Misti, Picchu Picchu and Chachani. All of them are covered in snow which made for some wicked scenery. The city itself it beautiful as well, alot of the buildings are made from a white volcanic rock called Sillar, which is why Arequipa is also known as the white city.
I ate a whole packet of biscuits for breakfast and we checked into our hostel, then went for a wander around the city centre. We decided to have a bit more food and a strong coffee, then check out the huge Santa Catalina monastery. It's like a whole town within a town, and hundreds of nuns would live there and never venture outside its walls. It was built in the 18th century, and is still active today, with 20 nuns residing inside. Back in the day, these nuns were very rarely able to communicate with their friends and families, and when they did, it would be through a latticed wall. They had everything they needed to survive in there - servants, kitchens, wash houses, and the mother superior also had a washing machine!
I wandered back to the hostel for a quick sleep (which ended up being 2 hours) and then met up with a couple of people from the group to head back into town to watch the sunset from a rooftop restaurant - heaven! We then went to a crepe restaurant to have both sweet and savoury crepes for dinner. I had chicken avocado and cheese, and butter, sugar and raspberry for dessert, it was so delicious!
Time to hit they hay, ready for our trip to Colca valley tomorrow!
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