Arequipa

We are starting to feel the cold up in the mountains so we have decided to drop down in altitude to warm up a bit, but it seems after nearly 10 months on the road we have forgotten how to plan. We booked a flight to Arequipa, but it turns out there is a big international Mining convention on at the moment so all of the hotels are full. No problem, we heard about an amazing canyon not far away, so we rented a car and hit the road again for a few days to discover the Colca canyon.

On the drive out of town we noticed we were mainly driving up hill, as we had to pass at least 100 petrol tankers, and the thermometer in the car was getting lower and lower. Another clue was also the fauna we could see, a few vicunas herds were happily grazig along the roads. These are very elegant animals but apparently quite agressive so we didn't get too close. We finally got to a viewpoint and stopped to take a few pictures of the volcanos in the distance, turns out we're now at 4910m 😬🥶. Whoops! The view is quite spectacular though. This definitely the highest we've been, it is higher than any point in Western Europe and North America! (Mont blanc is 4807m to spare you googling)

We decended the other side of the range to the small village we will be spending a few nights. Small village is maybe overselling it. We did a quick lap and didn't see a single shop, restaurant or bar. Luckily our little Lodge has everything covered and our little hobbit like room is very comfortable. This valley is not only interesting for its geography but also its history. Within a 40min walk we managed to see some tumbs dating from before the Incas and also some ruins from a pre-inca village. As we are quite remote here once the sun went down we had an amazing view of the stars and was even able to see the Milky-way.

We treated ourselves to a lay in the next morning, not stirring until 7am! What a treat! From our breakfast window we have a nice view of the valley and on the volcano Sabancaya which has cloud of ash above it. It seems that it erupts everyday! We headed up the Valley to check out the Canyon, it is apparently the second deepest canyon in the world, but we take all these dubious accolades with a pinch of salt (from Maras) these days. We drove to the Condor viewpoint high above the Canyon. The road was a but scary, with part of it that fell and others in a tunnel without any reinforcement, Peru's roads are definitely not Armelle's favorite roads! From the view point the canyon looks pretty deep. It is not as steep as the Grand Canyon so doesn't look as impressive but the sides rise up into volcano peaks so it is very foreboding. As the name suggest we also saw some Condors circling above the valley, it's really impressive to see these massive birds in the wild.Read more