Heading south from Cuzco, our little group (not so little maybe, as I´m now travelling with 5 other people) headed to Arequipa.  We arrived in the early morning, dropped our stuff off at Los Andes hostel and walked around town for a bit.  Arequipa is a tourist destination because of its proximity to the massively deep (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon at its deepest) Colca Canyon.

We found an agency and booked a three day, two night trek along, into and out of the canyon which was scheduled to leave at 3 AM the next day, which meant we needed a quiet (read: alcohol free) night.  We opted to head to the movies and see Avatar, which I thought kicked a more than adequate amount of ass.

The bus picked us up at our hostel and we drove for a few hours until we reached Cruz del Condor, an impressive lookout point where we saw huge condors in flight over the canyon.  The bus continued on from there until we reached a small town where we had some grub.  From there, we began the actual trek.  The first day, we hiked mostly downhill for a few hours and ended at a small, simple cabin where we ate dinner and stayed for the night.

The next day, we trekked for a few easy hours, then for about 15 grueling uphill minutes (which ended up being just a small taste of what was to come the next day). We stopped for the day at a beautiful lodge with a nice swimming pool and incredible view of the canyon. The rains started and we all had to work hard to pass the time (I foolishly fell asleep in the afternoon, which ruined my prospects for overnight sleep).

The next day, we set out at 5:30 in the morning and immediately started climbing out of the canyon.  The entire way was a steep climb over continuous switchbacks. The guides say that it normally takes about 3 hours, but a few from our group got up in an hour and twenty minutes. I managed it in two hours and twenty, which I was pretty happy with considering how out of shape I am and how little sleep I got the night before.

At the town at the top of the canyon, we had a small breakfast before catching our bus to the hot springs nearby. An hour or so of soaking in the hot water did wonders for my aching legs and back. The bus ride back to Arequipa was slow, bumpy and uncomfortable, but I still managed to sleep a bit.

That night, we met back up with a bunch of people from the trek, had some dinner (finally ate Cuy – Guinea Pig…  delicious), and partied at a few different bars around town. Perhaps it was a bit too much partying as we failed to follow through with our plans to leave Arequipa the next day.

The plan now is to head off tomorrow, straight to Copacabana, Bolivia on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Mostly, I just like to say ‘Titicaca’.