The White City and the Colca Canyon

Leaving Loki rather spontaneously at 8.30 Monday night, 6am Tuesday morning saw me stading in the undeniably beautiful Plaza De Armas in Arequipa, Southern Peru. Arequipa turned out to be a good deal hotter than Cuzco (or the savagely air condidtioned night bus for that matter) and within mínutes I had shed my jumper and was liberally applying the factor 30. I have made my peace with the fact that if I am sin suncream I will be con sunburn by the next day out here. Having gone to Arequipa to meet up with my friend Matt, as well as see the beautful city and the surrounding canyon country, I decided that 6am was still probably a tad on the early side for a social call and settled myself down in the Plaza to enjoy some desayuno (breakfast). I normally wouldn't ever eat in such an obvious tourist spot as the cost rockets up, but I found a very reasonably priced little place, and as the photos demonstrate the Plaza really was just a gorgeous place to sit for an hour or two... (see top and bottom photos). As I knew Matt was an early bird I decided that nine was late enough to pop round to Home Hostel Arequipa where he lives and disturb him. I was correct in my assumption he would be awake, and was charmingly greeted by a bread roll being launched at my head. Charming. However, Matt was secretly pleased to see me I'm sure, and within the hour we were off to explore the beautiful Arequipa. I was absolutely delighted when I was taken to the massive market there (since my first experience in Paraguay markets are one of my favourite places to visit in South American cities... they're so lively and entertaining; wizened old women battling over the price of meat, huge tubs of cearal and popcorn to eat as you walk about, big bags of fresh juice made to order- my own personal achilles heel; the whole experience just makes you feel engaged with the real people in the city. I'm always suprised so many gringos are scared to visit or just don't go at all), and for the first time since BA I was treated to good empañadas. Now a word must be said about the mystery of the empañada... when I first had one many, mnay months ago I was disgusted by the idea (its basically a cornish pasty but a million times more greasy, with unidentifiable meat inside, that has been constructed under circumstances of spurious hygine, normally by an old woman with no teeth, sold off a cart at the side of the road). However in Paraguay it was empañada or starve, and as time went by I became increasingly fond of the food. In Buenos Aries I found the art form perfected and enjoyed empañadas filled with beef and olives and egg (gorgeous)... and then La Paz. Now god bless the Bolivians but heaven only knows that if you enoy something in South America the Bolivians will have a version a million times worse that will repulse you, and after only one revolting empañada attempt I no longer ventured the street food in La Paz. Cuzco unfortunately suffers from too many tourist syndrome (a reason that I feel a tad uncomfortable in this city) and street food here had been cleared away for fussy tourists who want chocolate cakes and curries. However, Arequipa provided and I was so delighted with the find I ate no less than five and then spent my hot crowded bus journey to the canyon that afternoon reflecting on the poor choice of having a stomach full of grease and meat product.

Colca Canyon is about 3 hours from Arequipa. Do not believe the lying guidebook that insinuates that the canyon is just around the corner, and do not get onto a local bus as a result, as the upshot of this is you will end up with a box of live rabbits on your lap for several hours. I didn't even want to speculate what they were for. Anyway, it was just another South American essential experience, and at least I know enough Spanish now to politely make sure the bottom of the box was waterproof. I had once again decided to do a trip without a guide as the Isla Del Sol experience had been so fantastic, and I had figured out I could save roughly 50 pounds just taking local transport around the Canyon and asking the locals for travel advice. It was this attitude that led me to find a delightful little guesthouse in the villiage of Copanaconde to spend the night, and I whiled away the evening playing Uno with a very friendly group of Argentinians and drinking black tea.

It was also this attitude that saw me up at 5.30 the next morning to persuade a local cattle truck driver to give me a lift with all his market produce and the locals going the same way, and to drop me off at Cruz del Condor so I could see the birds of prey. The kind man assented for the mere price of three soles (75p) and I spent 2 of the most wonderful hours of my trip so far looking at the amazing scenery from the back of a cattle truck completely surrounded by bemused Peruvians (more bemused when I asked them to take me the photo here!).

Cruz del Condor was very pretty in itself and I was chuffed to see some of the birds (and lucky... its mating season and sightings are rare), and after an hour or so of bird watching I was back on a more conventional bus with hopes of hiking donw to the Oasis at the bottom of the canyon. Unfortunately my plans were foiled as I had only hiked about an hour down with a group of isreali guys hiking the same way before a local woman run up to us and informed us there had been puma sightings as early as few hours earlier and we should turn back. Turn back we did, and we were relieved to have done so as we found my hostel owners contemplating coming out looking for me and my other hikers in order to warn us of the danger. Evedently I have quite the way with the dangerous animals as apparently its been years since these kind of big cats vetured into the tourist part of the canyon.

My bus back to Arequipa was at two, and similarly full of livestock (think the scene from Borat where he lets the live chicken out on the subway), and by the time I got back I was shattered and only good for 3 or 4 hours of drinking in the bar with Matt and his employer Olly (a good friend of Cam and Alans´in La Paz... I was well looked after). I did finally get a chance to try a Pisco sour which is the local Peruvian cocktail, and not at all as revolting at the liquer its made with would have you think it might be. And then the next day, with a good nights sleep behind me I was off the explore the city with my running shoes on. Delighted to once again be in a park and by a river I spent seveal hours jogging about in the gorgeous Arequipa sunshine, before heading back to Home for a shower. I even managed to squeeze in a final trip to the market for an enormous bag of juice, a final peruse of the many bookstores (Arequipa is famed as being the Peruvian city of the educated- I missed bookshops SO much. But not libraries.) and a wonder round the sun drenched streets. And then it was back on my bus to Cuzco overnight, which was so cold there was ice on the inside of the windows for two hours before the bus driver thought to put the heating on. And by that night I was once again behind the bar at Loki counting down the days till my Inca Trail starts on Friday...