Colonnades in the Plaze de Armas, Arequipa, Peru

Arequipa is where I was born. A city located in Southern Peru, with a population of almost a million people. Its cathedral and many of its buildings are built from Sillar, the local volcanic rock. This is why Arequipa is known as Cuidad Blanca – the White City.

It’s very easy to get to by plane or by road. You can fly from Lima to Arequipa in 1 hour 35 minutes. LAN Peru offers seven to eight flights a day. There are also many bus companies that travel from Lima to Arequipa which takes about 16 hours, usually overnight. Travelling bus bus is quite comfortable and cheap too. Cruz del Sur and Orltursa have a safe and confortable service.  Read: Bus Travel in Peru >>

The climate is  dry and sunny almost all year long with the exception of the summer months, from January to March that is the rainy season, but after the rain there is plenty of sunshine. The temperatures are very mild,  generally between 10 and 25 C. In the winter it can be a bit chilly in the mornings.

Arequipa is called the White City because of the traditional buildings made with volcanic rock, the architecture is very interesting. In the historical centre thare are many buildings of the colonial era all made in volcanic rock and they are a mixture of  European and native building techniques.

The Monastery of Santa Catalina it’s very interesting and peaceful, it was built in in 1580 and it has an area of 20 000 square meters. It is like a walled village with its own streets where once women who became Nuns entered and remained inside – but life was not so bad, only the wealthiest women were accepted and they had a very comfortable life with servants looking after them. For the visitor today, it is a fascinating place with many attractive features to photograph.

Outside Arequipa, but still in the Arequipa region the main tourist attraction is the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world, it takes 4 hours by car and there are many travel agencies that arrange mini tours according what the tourist want, some people want to do some trekking and another people just want to admire the canyon with the condors flying around.

There is another canyon called Cotahuasi that some people say is the deepest in the world , it’s a long way from Arequipa City but the views are very interesting for the most adventurous people.

Night life in Arequipa is very lively there are lost of bars and night clubs not far from the mainsquare, many tourists go there.

Links:
http://www.santacatalina.org.pe/

The Colca Canyon in Peru is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. It is located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Arequipa. It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. However, the canyon’s walls are not as steep as the Grand Canyon. There is an even deeper canoyon, the Cotahuasi Canyon to the north west at 11,488 ft (3,501 m). Both the Colca and Cotahuasi canyons are both easily seen in satellite photos of this region. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with towns founded in Spanish Colonial times and formerly inhabited by the Collaguas and the Cabanas. The local people still maintain ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces.

The pre-Inca terraces are still farmed today.

The canyon is home to the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), a species that has seen world-wide effort to preserve it. The condors can be seen at fairly close range as they fly through the canyon walls and are an increasingly popular attraction. ‘Cruz del Condor’ is a popular tourist stop to view the condors, the pass where condors soar gracefully on the rising thermals occurring as the air warms. The condors are best seen in the early morning and late afternoon when they are hunting. At this point the canyon floor is 3,960 ft (1,200 m) below the rim of the canyon.

The La Calera natural hot springs are located at Chivay, the biggest town in the Colca Canyon, they are very popular with tourists.

The ancient farmers of Colca made use of every piece of land they could farm

Tourists are charmed by an alpaca at a refreshment stop on the way to Colca Canyon

Going to the Colca Canyon from Arequipa is very easy, there are tours offered by a lots of travel agencies, the most popular is one that takes two days and they are about USD 25 per person, depending of the hotel where you want to stay.

Alpaca grazing in the Colca Canyon in Peru

The tour start at 6 am, agencies usually pick you up from the hotel, from there there the journey to Chivay takes about 4 hours with some stops to buy coca sweets on a shop or to drink coca tea and take pictures of a cute Alpaca or wild Vicunas on the way there.

Vicuna, a wild relative of the Llama in the Reserve

When you arrive to Chivay there is a small tour around to see the very old traditional churches and then you will have lunch in a typical restaurant, this lunch is a complete meal with traditional food, there are a few vegetarian options or you can go to a nearby pizza place.

Hot springs warm this pool in Chivay in the Colca Canyon

After that you can rest for a little and then you will go to La Calera hotsprings where you can relax and have a swim in the nice warm water, then you return to your hotel to get change and then you will be taken to another restaurant for dinner and for a show with traditional music and dances where you can have a go at the dances too or enjoy a beer. Some people go to one of the small nightclubs after that but it’s better go to rest because the following day there is a 6 am start.

The next day you will go to Cruz del Condor Pointview where you can see the Colca Canyon and Condors flying around, there are good opportunities to take good pictures of Condors and you will see lots of tourists in there.

Me preparing to see the Condors in the Colca Canyon

Condors are one of the largest land birds in the world with a wingspan that can be more than 3 metres (9 feet)! They weigh between 11 to 15 kilos. In the Colca Canyon it is possible to see these birds soaring along the canyon on the warm air rising from its walls but you have to leave early with many tours. We travelled from the nearby town of Chivay arriving as the sun was just starting to get high enough to shine down into the canyon. Condors are big birds and cannot just jump into the air like a pigeon, they need to run into the current of warm air that is rising up from the canyon as the sun heats it, then they can glide around hardly ever flapping their wings.

Andean Condors fly in the air rising from the Colca Canyon

Condors are carnivorous birds, they are classified as vultures, so they are not hunting birds like eagles, their beaks are shaped for pulling meat apart but they do not have strong sharp toes like birds of prey. To attract them closer to the tourist parts of animals like cows heads are left out of the cliff edges near viewing platforms where everyone is waiting with their cameras.

A condor flies close to take a look at US!

One thing that images do not capture is how graceful these birds are, they glide around in circles rising on the warm air high above the canyon and then they can come rushing along the cliff edge with all the tourists chasing them with their cameras. If one flies over your head it is like a door flying over you with a big ‘wooosh’!

After that you will go for a walk, where you can see the interesting geography of the place, then you will probably go for lunch to a restaurant before travelling back back to Arequipa, arriving at about 5pm.