Colonial House Inn Arequipa

After two busy/crazy last days in Cusco I left for Arequipa. The last two days consisted of packing and running errands, saying goodbye to people and one last day of volunteering at the orphanage...maybe one of the best...Friday´s are laundry day at the orphanage so when I arrived at 3:00 I found all 35 of the girls, from age 5-16 up to the elbows in bubbles as they scrubbed their laundry clean. They really worked at it and some of them really liked it. They said I should bring my laundry and...

Took another arduous 16 hour overnight bus from Lima down to Arequipa in the south of Peru ... being cramped right in the back of the bus wasn´t too much fun ... but glad I´m here as Arequipa is a very nice city and I now plan to stay for about a month to do some volunteering here. The volunteering work is with local kids who attend a "Community Classroom" in a deprived area on the outskirts of the city , where I´m helping to teach them English and playing games/sports with them. I fully admi...

Greetings from Peru´s Ciudad Blanca....Arequipa, the white city!

I woke up over an hour before my alarm was set to go off. I was freezing and discovered much later that the window was open. Duh! With so much time to kill I padded around my room, tried to understand the morning news on the TV, started to repack my backpack, and then heard a huge **crash** on the street below my window. A police car and a mototaxi (a motorcycle with a covered cart on the back that can hold about 2 peopl...

Arequipa The second largest city in Peru Elevation 2400 meters After a six hour bus ride from Puno, I arrived at Arequipa. I was able to get a room at the Colonial House Inn and set out that afternoon to explore the Plaza de Armas. This is a beautiful plaza with a square shaped park, and at the heart of the plaza is a fountain topped by an angel known locally as ¨turututu¨ because of the trumpet the angel carries. There is a cathedral on one side, and colonial style two story buildings on the...

As I arrived after midnight in Arequipa, I took a taxi and, even if I had choosen already a hostel from the Lonely Planet Guide, I took the recommendation of the taxi driver (a former professor) ans stayed at a nice hostel (Hostel Colonia), where, for 35 soles ( USD12) I got a double room with bathroom and TV... Yeeeyyyy!!! After the other night spent in the Bus from Cusco to Puno (the floating islands tour),and the other 6 hours in the bus... the shower, the beds ( I could choos in which one...

Where to begin for this one...We finished up the Inca Trail and for some inane reason (actually we were too sick of saying "NO GRACIAS" in Cusco) we jumped on a bus to Arequipa at 6:30am. This was for two reasons; 1) We wanted to get on and arrive in the day time and, 2) It was the cheapest fare we could find...this was the interesting point. We´ve since learnt the phrase "Is this a tourist bus??" This was certainly a local experience, we were thrown on this local bus for a 11hr journey that ...

Arequipa was quite a nice little city, after we had got over the transport there! It is very colonial and there are loads of Plazas and roof top bars. We spent our first day missioning around, seeing some sights and just generally chilling. Our hostel (Colonial House) was amazing, great breakfasts and friendly staff, highly recommend it!! Another great recommendation that we received was the Zig Zag restaurant. This was the best meal that we have had thus far. Liz polished off an amazing ostr...