Arequipa

We made it through the Bolivian-Peruvian border fairly quickly and got to Puno, Peru at around 11:30am (Peruvian time, which is 1 hour behind Bolivian time). Puno is a very underwhelming town, so I decided not to stay. The bus to Arequipa was at 1:30pm, so I had some time to go get a SIM card and grab some food. I then took the bus to Arequipa and made it to my hostel at around 10pm... Definitely a long traveling day.

The next 2 days I mostly spent it in the hostel doing work. I would go out for lunch and dinner; 4-course meals (nothing fancy) for 10 Soles (a bit less than $3). At night, I'd stay in and play cards with people staying in the hostel.

On Friday, I booked a tour to hike the Colca Canyon over 2 days, starting on Saturday. In the afternoon, I joined a walking tour in the Plaza de Armas. There was only one other person in the tour, David from Ireland. The tour was good and I learnt a bit about the history of Arequipa. After the tour, David and I went to a roof top for drinks and to watch the sunset.

Hiking the Colca Canyon

The next morning, a bus picked us up at 3:30am. We drove to Chivay, and got there at 6:30am for breakfast. After breakfast, we drove to a mirador known as the Santuario del Condor. There, there is a panoramic view of the Canyon del Colca, as well as Condors flying nearby. The 2 next days I stayed in to do work and then caught a flight to Cusco. We got lucky and saw 3 condors; One of the landed very close by and was actually posing for pictures.

After the brief stop, we continued to the starting point of the hike. We started hiking at 10am. The first day is around 14kms and is mostly downhill. It was fairly tough on the knee. We stopped for lunch in a small village and then continued to the "Oasis", where we spent the night.

The next day, we started hiking a 4:30am to go back to our starting point. The hike was about 5.5kms with an altitude gain of 1,100m.

After the hike, we went to a spot with multiple hot-spring pools and then stopped back in Chivay for a buffet lunch.

We made it back to Arequipa at around 5:30pm. I went to the hostel to rest a bit before going to meet Jack, Connor and Hanna (they were part of my hiking group) at their hostel (the Wild Rover) from some beer and live music.

The next day, I stayed in Arequipa and started planning my Machu Picchu with Hanna. I would fly to Cusco the next day.