Arequipa and Colca Canyon

After an overnight bus ride we arrived in the beautiful colonial town of Arequipa, which has about 1 million inhabitants. The city is located at the foot of the snow capped volcano El Misti and the town is also called the white city, as most of its buildings are built with sillar, a pearly whit volcanic material. Besides the central plaza dominated by the large cathedral the most famous sight of Arequipa surely is the Santa Catalina Convent. It is a complete miniature walled colonial town of over 2 hectares in the middle of the city; over 450 nuns used to live in total seclusion in this convent. Nowadays only a few nuns are still living there and most of the area has been opened to visitors.

From Arequipa we drove to the Colca Canyon, said to be the deepest in the world (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). To get to Chivay where we stayed for the night, we had to pass the highest point of our journey so far, 4900 meters above sea level. It was pretty windy and cold up there and quite a few of us could feel the extreme altitude and the lack of oxygen….The next morning we went for a hike along the rim of the canyon and also spotted some condors from the lookout point “Cruz del Condor”. After a lunch stop in Cabanaconde we headed back to Arequipa, from where we would fly to Cuzco the next morning



Arequipa and Santa Catalina Convent

Colca Canyon