La Fuente Arequipena

Hiking

by christian99

I suggest 3 hikes of 1 day around Arequipa, with different landscapes and difficulty levels.

Tiabaya-El Huayco. Hike through the green fields along the Rio Chili. Low difficulty.
Chiguata-Yumina. Follow the gorge of the Rio Andamayo in the river bed up to the cultivated terraces of Yumina. Moderate difficulty.
Pocsi-Yarabamba. Hike down the gorge of Rio Polobaya through the picturesque villages of Sogay and Polobaya. Moderate to high difficulty

Plaza de Armas

by darthmilmo

The downtown area of Arequipa is lovely. Unfortunately, one of the bell towers of the Cathedral, a symbol of the city, fell in the 2001 earthquake. I'm sure it will get rebuilt soon so don't fear as it may already be fixed close to it's original glory by now.

Three neighboring volcanoes

by gt4715b

El Misti is a perfect cone shaped prototypical volcano which has a peak altitude of 5822 meters (19101 feet). Chachani has a higher peak of 6075 meters (19931 feet) but is more spread out and ragged looking. The little "baby" Pichu Pichu has a peak height of 5571 meters ( 18278 feet).

More bloody food poisoning

by Vaughanie

Arequipa is the second city of Peru. THe locals fancy themselves as a cut above the rest of the country and consider themselves Arequipans and not Peruvians. Apparently. They also told us they are much taller then the average Peruvian, a 4 foot nothing guy told us. He said he was an exception.
It`s a lovely city, more lovely colonial architecture to admire and another typical plaza to wander around. I do love the way every south american town and city has a plaza - better than having M&S as a focal point of a town like the UK
The main reason for our visit though was the Colca Canyon - a canyon twice as deep as The Grand Canyon dont you know. We took a bus initially which dumped us at 4800meters above sea level so we could pick up our mountain bikes which would take us the rest of the way. All down hill from there, easy peasy! We travelled back down to 3600 meters in a few hours and I must say it was a lot of fun - extremely fast and the mountain scenery was fantastic plus hundreds of llamas, vicuñas and alpacas to admire. I took the road, the easy way whilst Phil took the mountain `path`and fell on his arse. Apperantly we wont be going biking again for a while.

To relax after the bike ride, we spent a couple of hours in a near by hot spring at a cool 40ºc. Wonderful to soak the aches away.
That night we went to a folklore show to see how the locals entertain themselves at night. I usually hate these things and find the tacky and touristy but it was great! The couple dancing changed constantly and their costumes were divine. The dances were a delight to watch and there was plenty of audience involvement. I was dragged up a few times (we unluckily got front row seats) and had to lie on the floor while the guy whipped me! It was hilarious, if a tad embarressing.
The next day we were due to start our 2 day hike into the canyon itself. The following morning though I woke at 3am with a very dodgy belly and then the D&V began...... at 5:30, I went down for breakfast for some mate tea to see if it would help (the bolivians and peruvians are worse than the british with the miracle of tea, they have a tea to cure everything! Mate is a blend of coca, anis and manzania) Anyway, at the tables, where we`d eaten the day before, a baby alpaca was wondering round licking at the tables. Not the most hygenic place then, no wonder my tummy were gurggling!
It became quickly apparent that I wouldnt be going on any hike and so I spent the rest of the day in the mini bus feeling sorry for myself. We went to condor cross where you have a good chance of seeing condors but there were none around, typical of my luck.
I told Phil to carry on with the hike as there was no point in us both missing out and I headed back to the city where I spent 2 days in bed watching cable tv. Not so bad, as long as there was a toilet nearby I was happy.
Phil arrived back the next night looking green. Apparently about 3 hours after leaving me he fell ill too. Serves him right for leaving me alone while I was ill I say. The problem was though he was stuck at the bottom of a canyon! He had to hire a mule to carry him back out - poor mule!

The other highlight of Arequipa was the local monestry, which was closed to the public for centuries and was where many nuns were based. Rumour has it they were having a ball in there away from the prying eyes of the public, until news got out that they were getting up to no good and a severe mother superior was sent in to restore order. They had up to 6 servents per nun but they were all send away bar a few.
Now the monestry only has a few nuns left who have been sent away to a quiet corner while the rest is open to the public. The place is beautiful with wonderful architecture and it is a labyrinth of rooms and annexes. Absolutely beautiful - posible the most stunning buildings I have ever seen.
And that was that, the end of Peru. Next stop Argentina via Bolivia.