Peru: Arequipa - 27th to 30th December (Days 46 to 49)

On the 27th we woke up in Cusco around 4am and walked like 30 seconds to the airport. From there we took a flight with Latam at 6am to Arequipa. It was a very short flight, just about 45 minutes. When we got there we walked out of the airport to get an Uber. Arrived at Pablo's home, which was refurbishing some of the rooms. The refurbished rooms were fine, but the house was a bit dirty. We rested for a couple of hours and then walked to the city centre.

We had lunch at the best restaurant in Arequipa, which is called Chicha por Gaston Acurio. We tried Ocopa as starter, a traditional Peruvian dish with cheese, egg, aji, onion an garlic. Ari had meat raviolis as a main dish and I had osobuco. For drink we tried chicha morada and chicha de jora. It was expensive compared to the average price of the food in Peru but it was worth it as everything was delicious. We also tried queso helado for desert in the street, which is an ice-cream which doesn't really have cheese. In the afternoon we walked around the city centre, looking for agencies to book our tour to the Colca Canyon. We visited Plaza de Armas and Mercado de San Camilo. We came back to Pablo's house walking and when he arrived back home he gave us some chicken from his restaurant that he brought for our dinner.

Next morning we woke up around 9am and walked to the city centre again for a free walking tour. It started at 10am with a chocolate flavoured tea as a welcome drink and during the tour we visited a former prison called Fundo el Fierro and walked around colonial streets that reminded us a southern Spanish village. After that we visited Mundo Alpaca, where you can see the process of obtaining the wool from llamas and alpacas and you can buy clothes too, continued to Iglesia de la Compañía, Mario Vargas Llosa Library and ended the tour in Plaza de Armas.

After the tour we walked to Tipika restaurant, where Ari tried chupe de camarones and I had Kankacho. With the stomach full we walked back to the apartment, where we prepared our trip for the next day and rested as we had to wake up very early.

So we woke up at 2am! The earliest I can remember in our whole trip. We had to be at 3am in Plaza de Armas in front of the agency, where a van had to pick us up. The agency gave a wrong address to the tour van, so they were waiting for us at the other side of the square. We almost lost the tour because of that, but finally they picked us up 40 minutes late. We stopped at Chivay to have breakfast. Next stop was a lookout were we saw condors. We were lucky because it's not possible to see them everyday and we didn't see more in the Cruz del Condor, which is usually the main place to see them.

After that we continued for a short drive until Cabanaconde, where we started our group hike. The first thing that the guides said was that this was not an easy hike, and even told an old couple that they could not do it. The first 3 hours of the hike were down the Colca Canyon until a bridge in the Colca River. Then we continued for half an hour until a village where we had lunch. It consisted of vegetable soup and rice with a little bit of meat, the portions were tiny. There was a guinea pig farm in the village, which they breed for eat (it's a typical Peruvian dish called cuy). After lunch we continued our hike through a flat way along the canyon for 3 hours until Oasis de Sangalle. On the way we met a father and a son from Galicia who were travelling around Peru together and chatted with our guide.

When we finally arrived at the hotel in the oasis, Ari managed to get the first key of one of the private rooms from the guide (this is why she was being friendly with him before). So we left our bags in the room and went for a bath at the swimming pool, which was very cool and even had a natural rock inside. It was really nice to have a bath and relax for a bit after the whole day hiking, but unfortunately the pool was full of very annoying tiny mosquitoes. After the bath we went for dinner and to sleep straightaway afterwards as we had to wake up very early again next morning. The room where we slept was a very basic private shed, there was no electricity and almost no door and walls (they were full of holes).

So next day we woke up at 4am, when it was still night time and meet with all the tour group and guides to started the hike back up to Cabanaconde. We started the hike at 4.30am and the way was extremely steep, we covered 1200m unevenness in 3 hours. There were some people in the group that did it by donkey. It looked very dangerous and we even heard that some people died because they fell from the donkey, so we preferred to walk even if it was very though.

When we finally arrived at the top we were exhausted but very proud of ourselves. We had a well deserved breakfast in Cabanaconde. In the way back to Arequipa we stopped at Chivay hot springs, where we saw a smoke column coming from a nearby volcano. The hot springs were nice, there was around 6 different pools with different water temperature to bath in, but the bad think is that it was crowded. After the bath we had a lunch buffet, which didn't have much chooses and was a bit disappointing. Then we continued into Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Park, where we stopped at Mirador de los Andes for nice views and to watch the alpacas.

We arrived back to Arequipa around 17h. When we arrived at Pablo's home we had a shower and he brought us dinner. After eating we got a taxi with him to the centre to have some drinks. We met some of his friends there, who were ordering drinks three at a time taking advantage of the happy hour. Around 12 we went back to Pablo's home.