Arequipa & Colca Canyon

Trip Start Sep 04, 2007
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Trip End May 28, 2008


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Flag of Peru  ,
Thursday, October 11, 2007

After Lima we headed to Arequipa which is the second largest city in Peru. It is a very wealthy city and the central square was really nice. I visited the Santa Catalina Monastry where nuns used to live a very comfortable life with up to 3 servants looking after them. The nun's lifestyle changed in 1970 when the church forced them to adopt a more traditional lifestyle. The monastry is like a separate town within Arequipa and was very nice to walk around.

On the second day we visited Juanita (also known as the Ice Maiden), a frozen mummy from Inca times. We were told how the teenage girl had been sacrificed to the mountain gods around 1450. She was killed with a blow to the head and her body was preserved in the ice. Her body was found on top of a nearby mountain in 1995. We were able to see her body which is kept frozen in a glass box. It was a really interested museum and well worth a visit.

We then headed for Chivay, a small town high in the Andes. Early the next morning we visited Colca Canyon, which is the 2nd deepest canyon in the world (over 1000m deep where we visited). The canyon is famous because of its 25 pairs of condors which can often be seen soaring in the valley. We were really lucky so see a number of condors both resting on the ground and soaring above our heads.

In the evening I had my cheapest meal to date... soup (with chicken foot), followed by fried rice (mystery meat) and a random hot drink. Not bad for less than 50p.
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