Hotel Chiribaya Ilo

... volcanoe which was some sight as the bus arrived on the outskirts of the city. Won´t be climbing up that in a hurry.

We discovered on arrival that Soph, who had gone ahead a day earlier, had got herself on a 2-day trek involving seeing the canyons here (largest in the world), seeing condors and other cool stuff. However, she was up at 3am, followed by a 6-hour bus journey and a 3-hour uphill trek at very high altitude (sounds scarily like son of Inca Trail to ...

... overdue blog business? i started with option A (was gonna give the little buggers five minutes), but then i figured i've been wanting to write you folks a thing or two anywho; so, sorry steve but maybe brian will come to the rescue soon. but honestly, when they say "get a room", does it really need to be clarified to get your OWN room.
wait a minute, wait a stinking minute... brian's just knocked...loudly... and again... the seconds tick by and.... yes the door's ...

... really clean and comfortable, I managed to get quite a few hours sleep. After a quick nap and shower in the hostel I was ready to explore Arequipa town.

Arequipa is also named the ´White City´ due to its stunning white stone buildingssurroundingg the main square.

There were many Museums andmonasteryy´s to explore with lots of history lessons to be had. On my travels ...

... the cost was going to be 127 s/. ($60 NZ) to send a 600g package back to NZ - maybe Bolivia will be cheaper?

The bus ride is about 10 hours from Arequipa to Cusco so needless to say we splashed out on a comfortable tourist bus with movies, meals and nearly fully reclining seats.

... 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 see many Condors.

We then went to soak our aching muscles in some hot pools located at Yanque which was very refreshing. Lunch again at Chivay before heading back to Arequipa.

... back in Peru. Things are not so expensive here and there are not so many stupid rules and taxes on everything. Our sense of freedom has been returned.

A man in a business suit came up to us while eating breakfast and gave us a CD - it was a heavy-metal album that his son had made and he wanted us to have a copy He is very proud of his son - and the album is great - with English lyrics and a top ...

... without the gas, but it was reassuring to have a full tank as we crossed the desolate landscape.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant wanting to make sure we had one last Chilean meal but it was kind of disappointing. Its kind of close to Bolivia and the baked chicken and plain white rice confirmed that fact.

We got to Arica, filled ...

... in most of the churches and holy places, is these gaudy figurines that look like something out of a horror movie. I half expect the statues to come to life and turn into murderous nativity scenes. There was this one Jesus that had what looked like bullet holes all shot up in him. I am going to start up a collection of Jesus pics because there are so many of them here. I will call it, ¨The Many Jesi of South America.¨ (Pronounced Geez ...

... First job was to get ourselves booked onto a trek into the Colca Canyon. This we did, with a company called Land Adventures who were brilliant. We were picked up from the hostel at 6am, for the start of the 3 day trip. There were 7 of us in total, and then our host, Luis. We started with a 5 1/2 hour bus ride to the village of Cobacande (bad spelling!). A small village where we had some lunch and started the trek. The first ...

... which is a city in a city and was pretty interesting. That night we all went out for a big meal to try the local food, Tim ordered Guinea Pig and Laura ordered Alpanca so between the two of them I did manage to try both! I must say the alpanca was nicer but I was very lucky not to have ordered it for myself as everyone who had alpanca that night got food posioning!!! While we were here we also ...