Victoria and Justin: Flight of the Condors

It was time to leave Cusco, we took an overnight bus south to Arequipa, arriving at 6am. We went straight for the hostel, had a shower, a quick power nap and some breakfast, then headed out to explore the town centre. Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru but has all the charm of a typical colonial town, with it's white wash walls and hosting about a dozen cathedrals.

The highlight of town was our tour of the 'Monasterio Santa Catalina', a catholic monestry established in 1580 which had remained shrouded in mystery for near 400 years until it was opened to the public in 1970. Now ordinarily walking around a monestry wouldn't rank that highly on our list of 'must see' places but this place was impressive, some of the buildings dated back to the 16th century and had remained largely unchanged all this time. The building also housed some interesting art works, including plenty of depictions of the baby Jesus holding council with his followers, a little creepy.

The next moring we were picked up at 3am for our day trip to the Cañon del Colca. The canyon is the second deepest in the world, at 3191m, second only to the neighbouring Cañon del Cotahuasi. The Canyon has been an important farming region for over 1000 years, well before Inca times, it's covered in terraces which help to maximise the farming land, trap water and heat to help grow crops. It's an amazing sight.

The canyon is also home to the Andean Condor, a massive bird with an average wingspan of 3-4 metres. The Condors fly up and down the valley in the early mornings (thus the early wake up) and typically only when the sky is clear, these birds fly for pleasure! We arrived at the 'Cruz del Condor' at 9am, the best place to see them 'buzz the tower', we jumped out of the mini van as two Condors approached. When we reached the edge of the cliff the two birds flew right above us, using the updrafts to cruise through the sky, simply magestic. What an impressive bird. About 10 mins later another Condor flew over head. It was starting to cloud over now and that was it, they we're finished for the day. Our guide said we were lucky to see any that day. Gravy!

The bus ride back to Arequipa took us over a mountain pass at 4500m, offering amazing views of the surrounding volcanos and plenty of Llama, Alpaca and Vicuña (the national animal of Peru). We slept for the rest of the trip back to town. Another amazing couple of days. Next stop Lake Titicaca.