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...

We arrived in Arequipa at 8am after our first night bus. We were feeling quite exhausted.

Arequipa is located 2335 metres above sea level with El Misti, the dormant 5821 metre volcano overlooking the city. Many of the country´s finest colonial churches and mansions are constructed from white volcanic rock called Sillar.

Our hostel was an old colonial house with courtyards and a roof garden. Still tired after the bus ride, we caught up on some sleep.

In the afternoon, w...

After breakfast, we visited the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a convent which housed almost 200 secluded nuns and 300 servants from the late 16th century until it opened its doors to the public in 1970. There are still 30 nuns who live there but they are restricted to certain areas while the convent is open to the public during the day. It is a beautiful place, the architecture is mudejar style, adopted from the moors by the Spanish. We spent 1.5 hours wandering the various courtyards, cloist...

We awoke at 4am. Had breakfast at 4.30am. Then started our ascent at 5.05am before it got to hot. It took us 2 1/4 hours to reach the top as a group (record by tourist was 1hour 20min; slow people 3.5 hours; locals about an hour) so it was not a bad time. What made the trek hard was not so much the steepness but the trouble we were having from the altitude. The Oasis was at 2400 metres and the top was 3400m.

After the climb, we went back to Cruz del Condor and were fortunate enough to...

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...