Arequipa & Colca Canyon
Arequipa ia a beautiful city – it is known as the white city due to the colour of the stone used in the buildings.
Our main point of call here was the Santa Catalina convent.
The convent was opened to the public in 1970 after being closed for nearly 400 years and in its hey-day (if you can use such a term for a convent!) housed 450 nuns, it now houses about 30 in a corner of the, over 20,000 square meter, complex.
It was a fascinating place – a town in a town – with streets and cloisters with brightly painted walls and colourful plants set against the blue sky. Some of the, one assumes, senior nuns seemed to have their own appartment, with outdoor cooking facilities.
From Arequipa we took a two day tour to the Colca Canyon – one of the world’s deepest canyons at 3,269m. It wasn’t as impressive as we were expecting, but we enjoyed the visit nontheless.
We didn’t stay in Chivay, like most of the tours, but opted to stay in Yanque, the next village down. The hostel which we stayed in (La Casa Bella Flor) is probably one of the nicest hostels (and cheapest) on our trip – a very welcoming family and set in beautiful surroundings. Though it was the little touches that did it – coca tea on arrival and a hot water bottle put in our bed whilst we were having dinner.
In Yanque we walked to some old storage (colcas) urns and then onto the original village, Uyo Uyo. It was a nice walk made all the better by the local thermal pools which we stopped in on the way back – although it was more like a thermal swimming pool!
The next day we got up early to head to the Cruz del Condor – via a couple of stops in little villages – to see the andean condors, for which the canyon is famous, fly up on the early morning thermals. An amazing sight – so graceful for such big birds.
Tags: Arequipa, Colca Canyon, Peru, Travel
Jenni
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