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Arequipa & Colca Canyon

arequipa is a warm and very beautiful place surrounded by mountains and vulcanos. next to cuzco, it's my favourite southamerican town so far.

we stayed at a nice hotel near "plaza de armas", had good food and good red wine. tourists come here to visit the colca canyon (the deepest schlucht of the world, or the seconddeepest, they don't know exactly). we came here to do the same and it was an interesting trip.

on the first day of walking through fantastic landscapes and visiting more inca ruins we got completely soaked, it was raining cats and dogs. luckily the day ended with a visit of hot springs so we could warm up for about two hours. the hot springs are open air, so we were sitting in the warm water with cold rain dripping down on us. the local guys had a great time watching the dutch girls and gave them a nonstop whisteling concert. direct next to the hot springs, rocks came rolling down from the mountain. everything is moving here during the rainy season...

our stuff did not dry during the night. we had to get into our cold, wet clothes at quarter to five in the morning. it was the day we were supposed to see condors fly!

unlike me, the condor is a creature of the morning. it likes to fly and enjoy the view of the colca canyon between 7.00 and 9.00 a.m. the "cruz del condor" or condor watching point was three hours of bumpy streets away from our cosy beds. after we arrived, the rain finally stopped and slowly we realized, still freezing, that we will survive that experience as well. a couple of minutes later everything was forgotten because we saw them: condors! it was great, these animals are the kings of the air. the view was fantastic and we were happy.

the colca canyon was definitly worth visiting. what i also got with this trip was the highest busride of my life, we went up to 4.900 meters. the landscape got a bit moonlike and the child next to me did not vomit this time. ( i forgot to tell the story about the busride to the colca canyon...). although the bus broke down once, we arrived back in town savely.

in arequipa we had to say goodbye to anna-eva, she had to go home to holand, we still cry. after visiting the beautiful monestry of st.catalina, it was time for us to leave for bolivia.

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