19/08/2019 – Arequipa, Colca Canyon, Puno, Peru

Our alarms went off at 01:30, we were up for a very early morning start! We splashed our faces, brushed our teeth and were by the front door by about 02:00 awaiting our pick up. Although we were the first ones to be collected, our pick up was late at 02:30 (that’s ok, we are getting used to these timings!) We chucked our bags under the bus and tucked ourselves up into our seats on the coach whilst we drove around the city, picking up the other guests from their accommodation. Once the coach was full and we were to begin our 3 hour drive, we were each handed out fleecy blankets, as our guide explained the heating on the coach didn’t really work. Josh and I plugged ourselves into some podcasts and dozed off. I woke up abruptly feeling hugely nauseas, woke Josh up (who said I looked green) and asked him to find me a plastic bag. It was light outside and we were at an altitude of nearly 5000m. Luckily about two seconds later the bus stopped and opened its doors, for everyone to pile out and get a good look at the volcano that had smoke coming out of it.

I got out and did some deep breaths, and recovered pretty quickly without making a mess! A little while longer and we were pulling up in the town of Chivay, where we were ushered into a room with tables set out and provided with coffee and bread for breakfast. After breakfast we drove to the main viewpoint, looking down into the deepest canyon in South America. It was huge and the scenery was fantastic. Mountains and terraces and the canyon, all yellows and greens, it looked like a painting!

We saw quite a few condors, both flying and perched on the side of the mountain. They have a wingspan of 2.8m and flick their feathers out when they fly, like the fingers of a ballerinas hand. They were beautiful to watch soaring past us, and they came pretty close so we really could notice their enormity, no binoculars needed! (Although I did enjoy looking through them all the same to see a bit more detail, ya know?!) We got back in the bus and seemed to go to a variety of different viewpoints.

There were ladies with alpacas and llamas there selling their handicrafts and snacks (Josh managed to get a Twix which he exclaimed to me he hasn’t had since we left England!) We went back to Chivay for lunch where we had a help yourself buffet of I don’t know what, it tasted good though! Our guide showed Josh and I onto another bus for the afternoon, as we were continuing our tour onto Puno, and were not heading back to Arequipa like the other guests. We got onto our other bus and for the rest of the afternoon stopped at different viewpoints including huge lakes, volcanoes, mountains and all sorts.

By the end we were so exhausted that I don’t think we even got out the bus for one of the stops, just carried on snoozing. We arrived in our destination, Puno at about 20:00 where a car was waiting for us that transferred us to our hostel. Puno is a small town beside lake Titicaca and our final destination in Peru! We stayed in a hostel called ‘Huaytasive’. It was super old rickety building with tons of character. We have two single beds, WiFi, a shared bathroom and breakfast included. It was absolutely freezing in Puno! Luckily the shower water was hot, so we warmed up, put our hats gloves scarves etc on, and walked up the road to a pizza place Josh had found. We filled our bellies and then tucked up into bed, absolutely freezing!