After an all night bus ride, we arrived in Arequipa at 5 am.


Arequipa is Peru's second largest city and was founded in 1540. The site was chosen for its proximity to the coast, enabling settlers to trade the products of Cusco and the mines of Potosi (Bolivia) with Lima. The local cultivation of wheat, corn and grapes all contributed to the regions economic growth.



The city is surrounded by 3 volcanoes; El Misti, still active at 5822m or 18,250 ft, the higher and extinct Chachani 6075m or 19,800 ft and Pichu Pichu 5571m or 17,250 ft. The Incas highly respected these volcanoes since the melt water from their snow-capped peaks form the headwaters of the mighty Amazon River, thousands of kilometers away.

This is a concrete plant


We saw llamas and alpaca's along the roadside



We have a months worth of prescription altitude sickness pills from our doctor, which we started taking 2 days before. The tour guide stopped at the store for us all to buy Cocoa Leaf. It comes in several ways, the leaf itself or different candies. This helps with altitude sickness.




The highest we went was 16,200 ft. At this point we got out to take photos of the volcanoes. We both felt a bit light headed and I had a headache.

We spent the night in Chivay. It is very cold at night. Cold like you need a hat, gloves and a parka (which we didn't bring). There is no heaters in the room, all you have is several heavy blankets, which kept us warm.

We all went out to dinner where there was live music and traditional dancing.

This was my placemat


This is the band


Not sure if you noticed, but one of the guys is playing a 12 string ukulele


It was Monday night and the Seahawks were playing so Denny wore his bandana (actually he said it was very warm)


Two of the guys changed instruments


Then the dancers came out, this gal smiled the hole time!


The guy dancer


Then the guy dancer asked me to dance with him, of course I said "yes"!


Our fire oven pizza arrived - it was delicious!


The dancers changed costumes



After a great nights rest and a hot shower we are off for a full day of tours

This is the town square where women were dancing


Then we went to Colca Canyon. The depth of the canyon is 10,725 ft. it is one of the deepest in the world, second in Peru after the Cotahuasi Canyon and more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with pre-Inca roots, and towns founded in Spanish colonial times, still inhabited by people of the Collagua and the Cabana cultures. The local people maintain their ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces.

This is the beginning of many photos I took. You can see green below where they grow potatoes, corn, rice


We stopped at a site seeing spot where these women posed for a photo with their lama


This is how they travel from one place to another


There is a river at the bottom from the glacer





This is what some of the homes looked like





The volcano's are beautiful!




This one is still active


Then we stopped at where the Andean condors are. These birds are massive, among the largest in the world that are able to fly. Because they are so heavy (up to 33 pounds), even their enormous 10-foot wingspan needs some help to keep them aloft. For that reason, these birds prefer to live in windy areas where they can glide on air currents with little effort

This one was a male (he has a Mohawk)






This was a female sitting on a rock. These birds were fascinating to watch! She said that the condor flies near the cows when walking on the side of the cliffs, they get distracted by the bird and fall, when they are dead they eat the cow



Then we took a short hike. Even though I hiked with Steve & Rena and Drew & Erica, the altitude got me winded

Our tour guide was explaining the different places where people lived.




Right along the hillside, it takes them 5 hours to get to the road (now that's a hike to get food)


In the day, it gets very hot, like shorts & a T-shirt hot (which I didn't bring, so Denny bought me some)


The sun doesn't seem to bother these ladies resting in the shade


We visited the local church



Then we got back in the bus for a 4 hour tip back to Arequipa. Here we will spend the night and get up at 5 am for a pick up at 5:30 am.

This trip is really going smoothly and we are enjoying each minute!

Life is good on Kokomo!

Becky