Leaving the enchanting city of Lima behind us, we took the early LATAM airlines flight to the beautiful colonial town of Arequipa. This city is surrounded by 3 snow capped volcanoes in the Andes. One of these volcanoes, El Misti, is still active. Arequipa is nicknamed la ciudad blanca to reflect the white volcanic rock used to build the baroque and intricate designs of the city’s buildings. If you go to the main square, el Pasaje Catedral wouldn’t look out of place in somewhere such as Athens or Paris.
To the north of the city lies the deepest canyons in the world, most famously Cotahausi and Colca Canyons. The great variety makes this region a place of great contrasts, teeming with volcanoes, colonial architecture and booming crevasses that carve through the Andes mountain range. Canyon country certainly makes for a very special visit.
On arrival in Arequipa, we enjoyed an amazing Peruvian and Thai fusion meal which certainly fulfilled our appetites after our long journey from the capital. We stayed in the incredible Casa Andina Premium in Arequipa which offered a great rustic feel with armour, paintings and antiques making up the interior design of the hotel. It made for a great resting place and somewhere to relax after 3 months of intense travelling and hostels.
For dinner on our first evening, we enjoyed an amazing venison shin accompanied with a cheesy, mushroom pappardelle which made for a mix of Peruvian and Italian cuisine. We wandered around this colonial town and the next day headed to the monasterio de Santa Catalina which is based in the centre of the city. Guarded by tall walls, the 20,000 square metre enclave makes the monastery its own village within Arequipa. The monastery’s coloured walls and colonial edifices demonstrate the history of the place and the way of life for the monks who used to reside there and how they would go about their day to day activities.
Following this, we had a walking tour of the city where we saw llamas and alpacas for the first time in Peru, the latter of which we would try for the first time in a restaurant the following evening. It’s interesting that such a beautiful animal is cooked and served with chips and salad but it made for quite a delicious yet it has quite a tough feel to it. The walking tour culminated with a food stop, or so we thought that would be. On entry to a middle-aged man’s restaurant, we were expecting to try some local Peruvian delicacies. Instead, he gave us a philological breakdown of the words used for food across 10 different cultures and what linguistic similarities they shared. It was more a history lesson in the language of food and its global connections rather than what we were all really there for: eating some of it. Arequipa’s Plaza de Armas and its rooftops also offered some amazing views of the city and the surrounding canyon country (as pictured below), the latter of which would be the next stop of our travels. As we enjoyed a drink before dinner on our final night in Arequipa, there was a great sense of anticipation as to what was to come in Cañon del Colca.
