Arequipa, Peru

Puerto Inka was our next stop, just a couple of hours from Nazca. We camped at a beach side campsite and had the afternoon free to enjoy. Some people went to see the nearby ruins of the Inca port which in its time was said to be able to get fish to Cusco (a long way away) in just 24 hours. Myself and Antony took advantage of the sea kayak hire and braved the rather cold and choppy water to see if we could find the sealion that had been seen off shore. The thing was very sneaky though and didn't want to be found. All good fun all the same though.

We had a spectacular scenic drive along the coast and then inland to Arequipa, the white city named after a locally found white volcanic rock called Sillar that a lot of the colonial buildings are made from. The city was very chaotic as we tried to get the truck down the narrow streets. It wasn't happening and after driving around the block many times and reversing down one way streets we just couldn't get parked outside the hotel so we all piled into taxis (always an experience) to get to the hotel. It was the best taxi ride of the trip so far as it turns out that the driver can play the pan pipes and whipped them out from under his seat to give us a rendition of “let it be” in time with his CD playing. Brilliant!

Arequipa is the second biggest city in Peru and is beautifully set in the shadow of the huge volcano El Misti at 5825m high. The must do in the city is a visit to Santa Catalina Monastry which we took a guided tour around. It was built in 1579 with rich Spanish families sending their second daughter there to live as a nun. Each nun had many servants and their families built a home for their daughter. There are 80 houses, many containing more than one nun which were spread over 4 streets. Eventually the monastery turned into a museum which was fantastic to walk down the cobbled alleys, through the arched courtyard, into the nun's houses and to see the clay pot laundry. I surprised myself by enjoying the tour which was definitely worth while doing

From Arequipa we had over 500km to cover to get to Cusco. Finding the road to Cusco proved pretty difficult as the one we thought was the highway turned into a dirt road an hour out of the city. 2 hours after leaving the hotel we were back in the city and had to put Mikkel and Francois in a taxi so that we could follow it to the correct road. We eventually found it as we were treated to some amazing scenery of snow topped mountains and flat grassy plains, exactly what I thought Peru would look like. We found a great bush camp in a small quarry which sheltered us from any wind. It was the first time that it's been properly cold since southern Argentina and it was a shock to the system. I also learnt a valuable lesson - don't put flip flops outside your tent when overnight temperatures are below zero! From a cool morning we headed for another 5 or so hours until hitting Cusco, a big marking point in our journey as we stop for 6 nights for a chance to see what the Incas built.