Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, and after visiting Cusco we took a flight there. Just like Cusco is named “The Blue City”, Arequipa is “The White City”.

Most of the buildings in Arequipa are white, with a colonial architecture. There is a huge cathedral next to the Plaza de Armas, surrounding by different buildings with arches.

The different churches within the city are built in a baroque style, mixing the colonial architecture, the columns and catholic symbols with the indigeneous and incas symbols such as the sun, the snake, etc… It’s really interesting to walk around!

We did a walking guided tour in the city and could learn quite a lot of things! The city is surrounded by several volcanoes, the most famous is the Misti, with its active fumaroles, and the Chachani, at more than 6000m high.

Another touristic attraction in the city is the Saint Catalina Monastery. This is like a small city within the city! Apparently there was up to 450 nuns living there, and each family that sent a daughter there had to pay a fee. But as less and less girls were sent there, the monastery had to find a new source of income, and opened its door to the public.

We could visit it at sunset, wander around the streets of the monastery while its street lamps were being lit. You can easily spend 2 hours walking around and almost getting lost in the streets of the monastery.

Close to Arequipa is another nature’s wonder: The Colca Canyon.

It’s the second deepest canyon in the world, with a maximum depth of more than 3000m and more than 100 km long! It’s also surrounded by terraces built by the incas for the agriculture, and still used today.

We decided to go for a 2-days trek with a group, the first day going down the canyon and sleeping there, and the second day going back up 🙂

It’s also a place where condors nest, and we could watch them fly right over our heads. It’s really impressive, these birds can be up to 3m wide!

The first day we went to watch the condors and started our way down the caynon. Once we reached the bottom, we walked along the river for some time and reached an oasis where we spent the night. And it was really an oasis, a green place with tropical plants, water, surrounded by dry rocky landscape.

On the following day we started walking at 4:30am and climbed up the canyon. We could watch the sunrise as we were walking up 🙂 The rest of the day we visited a few villages around the colca valley and eventually headed back to Arequipa.

We stopped in the altiplano to see the different volcanoes and a few alpacas 🙂

After a good night’s rest, we took a bus to Puno, on the shore of the Titicaca lake on the peruvian side.