Arequipa and the Colca Canyon
11th Nov - 15th Nov (Day 252 - Day 256)

Our bus from Puno to Arequipa was due to leave in the early afternoon, we took the opportunity to get to the bus station earlier to book some other bus tickets we would need over the next week or so.

We asked the girl in reception at our hostel to help us hail a decent taxi as there are lots of dodgy rogue taxis about. This was fairly easy and we jumped into the taxi and said are goodbyes. The girl from the hostel helped out by slamming the door of the taxi close for us. At this point I felt a funny numbing sensation in my hand, I looked up and realised that my hand was trapped in the now closed front passenger door. Its was an odd moment as I was the only one who had realised but I was too shocked to speak...I started pointing at my hand and the others soon realised what had happened and quickly scrambled to try and open the door. Amazingly the door must have been pretty weak and bent around my hand as apart from a few short term dents in my hand that I didn't have previously there was no serious damage done. Although judging by the mortified look on the hostel girls face it seemed it might take her longer to get over the incident than me!

We managed to reach the bus station and find our bus without further incident. We were lucky enough to get seats on the top floor of the bus right at the front so we had the benefit of some stunning views as we travelled across the Andes to Arequipa. The only downside of our seats was we also had the best view of the crazy overtaking manoeuvres our bus driver was carrying out on the twisty mountain roads....pretty scary at times.

One our first day in Arequipa we booked our tour to the Colca Canyon for the following day and took some time to wander around the city. We headed to the main square to check out the huge Cathedral, one of the most famous attractions in Arequipa. The city has some lovely architecture, it is particularly beautiful because unlike all the other cities we had visited in South America, all the colonial buildings in Arequipa are made from white stone from the nearby mountains. This gives the city a completely different look and feel. It is also the reason why the city is nicknamed the white city. Arequipa is also surrounded by imposing mountains, the biggest and most striking of these is El Misti volcano which looms in the distance with its classical cone shape. In the mornings in our hostel we had breakfast on the roof terrace where we had awesome views of the mountains in the distance, a fantastic way to enjoy coca tea and dry bread!

The following day we had a early start as we were to picked up by our mini bus to take us on our tour of the Colca Canyon. The Colca canyon is found near a town called Chivay 4 hours drive from Arequipa. The Canyon is famous for 2 reasons. One because it is the second deepest canyon in the world at 3,600 meters, twice as deep as the grand canyon. The second reason is because it is one of the best spots to see Andean Condors.

Our mini bus took us through the mountains towards Chivay. We stopped at several points to take in views of the surrounding mountains and volcanos. We also had a brief stop at the highest point on our route at 4,900 metres, we didn't stay here for too long as you an really feel the lack of oxygen in the air as you begin to breath heavily and you can feel your heart begin to race.

Once we reached Chivay we were dropped of at our hostel where we had an hour or so before we were picked up again to visit some local hot springs. The hot springs made a nice change and it was good to relax in the steaming hot water. It also gave us the opportunity to chat to some of the other guys in our group, in particular we had a good chat with a girl from Hong Kong called April.....she was traveling around South America on her own but in the oppositie direction to us, so it was interesting to swap experiences and recommendations. That evening we had dinner with the group, the food wasn't great and there was some dodgy local dancing going on but we managed to pass the time chatting to April. Well to be honest April and Tina spent most of the time discussing how boring the food in South America is and going through all their favourite foods from Hong Kong. The next day we had a 5am start as we had to drive along the canyon for 2 hours to get to the condor spotting point. We drove along the canyon following the Colca river. Initially the Canyon was shallow and we were right next to the river, as we continued to drive the canyon began to get deeper and deeper. We stopped at several view points to take in the view, which was stunning....at this point the canyon was still very green and had been made into farming terraces on either side. This combined with the river running through the middle with dark blue lakes either side made for some great views. As we followed the Canyon further it began to get very deep and lost all of the greenery we had seen previously it was now just sheer mountain sides with the river thousands of metres below in the distance. At this point we all took a short trek along the side of the canyon, the trek ended at Cruz del Condor, the main Condor spotting area. Tina, April and I found a spot to sit on the side of the canyon and began to discuss whether we would actually see any condors as it was far from garanteed at this time of year. As we were chatting we suddenly looked up to see a dot in the distance flying towards us. We were pretty excited as the dot grew into a condor which continued straight towards us...in the end it flew a couple of metres above ourheads. It was huge! and an amazing sight as it glided over our heads.....we couldn't believe it, not only seeing a condor but getting so close was amazing. We were really surprised.....so surprised in fact that none of us had our cameras ready so we all missed what would have been a spectacular photograph.....although it was an amazing moment all the same. We were lucky enough to see a few more condors over the next hour or so but none anywhere near as close....but it was still fantastic to watch these huge birds in the distance, glide gracefully above us in the sky... a real highlight. After the condor spotting we had a 5 hour journey back to our hostel in Arequipa. We had one final day in Arequipa to relax before facing two days of long bus journeys....Arequipa to Puno the next day and then Puno to La Paz the following day.