Los Balcones de Moral y Santa Catalina Arequipa

... taxi. 48000 apparently!<br><br>Next day we had a lovely relaxing day in Arequipa. The climate is very different from most of Peru being much lower altitude therefore much warmer to where we´d been already. 360 days of sunshine a year - not bad - so shorts on. Spent day reading, few cafe stops and catching up on the all too needed washing. <br><br>Thurs 29th Oct - no rest for the wicked!! Time to move on again. Heading to the Colca Canyon for hopefully condor ...

... a cappuchino on the balcon of one of the resturants and witnessed another parade of youngsters from local schools and colleges dressed in school uniforms as well as traditional clothing representing the different zones around Peru. Shopping was limited as most places open late on Sunday. I enjoyed one last meal with my family and said my goodbyes with sadness as I headed to the bus terminal for my next destination - Puno and Lake Titicaca.

... morning are very important in terms of creating a bond with the girls and showing their love and support for them. Jim and Gloria also provide the girls with advice and support on personal issues &#8211; with their family, with money, with their health, etc.<br><br>It is hard love too though. If a girl is not showing up for work or is causing problems within the group, she will get a stern talking to from Gloria. There are times when a girl has to be ...

... the bus to Puno and then we had a great lunch just behind the cathedral - we were sitting on the roof so we could watch over everything. In the afternoon we went back to the hotel and as it was so warm we just sat on the verranda outside our room and read and birdwatched - we saw another first which was the plumbeous rail wading about in the river which has an amazing colourful beak - red, blue ...

... this canyon is not quite as vertically formed as Zion or Havasu in the States, but rather a deep valley running between two rather high sets of mountains -- perhaps it's a marketing ploy to get more tourists :). Anyway it's still beautiful as we pound our knees into submission switch back after switch back until we cross a bridge and make for the 2nd village well be spending the night at ...

... yet. Vomiting children, ridiculous amounts of heating, gravel roads, bursts of eardrum bursting music. It had it all. Man i was gratefull to get off that bus. <br>We had arrived in the town of Cabanaconde, not a whole lot there apart from it being the starting point of our two day hike. We again managed to find ourselves a funky (and warm!) little hostel owned by a nice and cute Peruvian named Ludwig (though not the most Peruvian name out there). The town itself was dry and ...

... 8 girls, and most of us winded up with pretty massive blisters on our feet at the end of the descent. I wasn't doing too bad though, but what was harder for me was the lack of blood sugar since we had been given very small portion to eat earlier, which seriously went to my head and made it difficult for me to walk the last few hundred meters on the plain, when at the bottom of the canyon. The so-called guide from Land Adventures had been seriously useless so ...