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Wow, that was a surprise.
I thought the city of Arequipa was small and insignificant... But was dead wrong!
Arequipa is called ¨The white city¨ for a very good reason. Most of its buildings are made of a lava stone, brought from a nearby volcano. The stone is very porous (Nakbuvit :)) and gray-white and make the buildings seem very unusual compared to other typical cities in Peru or in South America in general.
The city itself is surprisingly beautiful. Lots of buildings are unique, the main square - Plaza del armas is wonderul and there are some churches and nice architecture in the central area. We spent a day wandering around the city and I couldn´t spot admiring how much better it seems than most of the cities i´ve seen in South America so far (especially in Bolivia and Peru).
But enough about the city... As much as it is nice (and as interesting as the food is), this is not the reason we´re here. There´s only one big reason we came here - Condors!
Arequipa is where you go when you want to see these magnificent birds, and lots of them... Canyon del Colca (Canyon of Condors), which is not far away from the city is definitely the place to go. Although they did pick us up at 3:00a.m. which kind of ruined the morning... We drove for way too many housed to get to Chivaz, a small town close to Canyon del Colca for breakfast. after then we drove a bit further and got to Cruz del Colca (The Condor´s cross) - a small hill with a big cross and an amazing mirador that sits on top of the magnificent canyon. The view is spectacular, but the unique part is that on that spot you can see, every single day, about a dozen of huge condors flying just a few meters over your head.
The sight is incredible as these awesome creature soar with ease over the people and plunge into the deep canyon. We stood there for about 2 hours and still couldn´t have enough of it.
After that mirador we stopped at 2 more view points to see the valley and to taste some local simple food - boiled corn (strange, strange corn...) and cheese. The canyon is amazing from every possible angle.
We had a wonderful surprise as we stopped in one of the small villages in the area just for taking photos, and saw unusual pets on the street... One of them was a small condor who was raised by a peruvian guy, and the other was a hawk. The llama that stood there was suddenly less special as a pet... We couldn´t help it - we had to take photos!
This amazing day ended perfectly in hot springs where we could only spent about 45 minutes, but it was worth it! :D
Arequipa was incredible, but it was just the foreplay... Now we´re off to Cusco for some serious trekking, Machu Pichu and Superman time! (explanation ahead) :)
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veredm ?? ???:)