Arequipa is a nice city. There is a beautiful Plaza de Armas with the obligatory cathedral. We walked around the city and had a delicious falfal for lunch. The main reason to visit Arequipa is for the jumping off point for the Colca Canyon, which is deeper than the Grand Canyon. We successfully negotiated a price for a 2 day 1 night trek into the canyon for the day after next. Our egos were a little inflated after conquering the Inca Trail so we thought we could handle anything.
The highlight of Arequipa is the museum to visit the Ice Maiden Juanita. She is a 14ish year old girl that was an Inca human sacrifice that was found in 1995 in the top of an area volcano. The museum is absolutely amazing and the tour was very well presented. The mummy is just wow. Amazing after 500 plus years, she is still so well in tact. Amanda and I saw mummy child sacrifices at a museum in Salta, but this was truly spectacular and it was really interesting to learn more about the Inca Culture. I also visited a 500 year old convent in the city. It was really different than what I imagined a convent would be like. All the walls were painted bright colors and had really detailed murals on the walls. I did tour of the convent by myself and it was kind of creepy at some points being in the really old convent cells and going in and out of the shadows.
We had to get up really early the next day to begin our trek into the Colca Canyon. First we stopped at the Cruz de Condor to see all the condors flying over the canyon. They are truly majestic birds and the soar really close to the lookouts so it was an awesome view.
We arrived at the canyon ready to begin our second trek in two weeks. However, it turns out that we were fibbed a little bit too. We were told we would be walking 3-4 hours on the first day, instead it was a grueling 7 hours straight down a gravel path into the canyon and it was hard. Our egos were burst within the first terrifying slip down the gravel. The canyon itself it gorgeous, but we really couldn´t enjoy it too much since we spent most of the time making sure we didn´t fall off the cliffs. Also, our group and guide were terrible, not supportive or encouraging and balked because we weren´t running with them. I tried to explain that we weren´t slow, just cautious, but we couldn´t have happier to arrive at the oasis that evening.
The next day was better, just 3 and a half hours back to the top of the canyon. Going up is still so much better than going down. The best part about the day was after the trek, we stopped at some thermal baths in town and were able to relax our muscles. Seriously, this two day trek was a hell of a lot worse than the 4 day one and our feet were torn to shreds.
We had booked a bus that night following the canyon to Nazca. We arrived there in the morning and after a quick walk around the 2 blocks that are Nazca we changed our plans of staying 2 nights to just one night. The thing to do in Nazca is to fly over the Nazca lines, which are in shapes of animals and other things that have zero explanation for their existence. I was really nervous about the flight over the lines because its flying in a little 6 seater plane, but I agreed and I´m really glad that I did. Sarah however, was not so glad that we took the flight and was a little queasy after takeoff.
The lines were really sweet. They were hard to take pictures of, but I did the best that I could. There are about 14 in total and the plane would fly over each of them twice, once on the left and once on the right. The whole plane ride was only 35 minutes and while I´m glad I went, I was even better when we landed.
Quick to get out of Nazca, we boarded a local bus to Ica. Sarah was very lucky that day to sit next to a stranger that decided to breast feed the whole 2 hours to Ica. In Ica, we took a taxi to the sand dune oasis of Huacachina. Its just a tiny hippie village literally in the middle of these massive sand dunes. We picked the hostel there based on which one had the best pool and we spent the next day catching some rays. The hostel we were staying in offered a sand dune buggy trip with sandboarding on the dunes later in the afternoon. Super adrenaline rush!!! Our buggy driver was insane. Every time he turned on the engine, he did the father, son, holy spirit over his chest, which of course was very comforting. He drove like a maniac over the dunes and it was the best rollercoaster ride I had ever been on. The sandboarding was really awesome too! We started first with some little hills, first on our stomachs on the board and then tried one standing up. Very difficult to try to carve in sand, not like snow. We then went to some much bigger hills and went down them on our stomachs again. So freakin fast! It was really really really fast! Amanda took a little tumble off the board on the last hill and has a war wound on her chin to prove it.The next day we spent most of the day on the bus to Lima. We arrived in the capital city to celebrate Sarah´s 25th birthday yesterday!!! We hadn´t heard great things about Lima and central Lima is not meant to be safe at all. We are staying out in the suburb of Miraflores and it is surprisingly wonderful. We are really close to the best grocery store that I have ever been in. Amanda and I were so excited to be there we run around the store going from food sampler to food sampler, just so happy for some free food! We walked around the neighborhood yesterday and down to the beach area before going out last night to celebrate.
Tomorrow night we are going to take a bus up the PanAmerican South Highway near the city of Trujillo where there are some more Inca ruins and stay on the beach near there. Then another beach in Peru before we cross into Ecuador. Few places there before Colombia!!! Very excited about Colombia has we have heard the best things about Colombia!!! Only 8 weeks left in South America!
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