We left Cusco on our first night bus with Peru Hop – a bus company that has guides on board and is a hop on hop off service from Cusco to Lima. After being fleeced by the taxi driver, we were pleased to find there were only 6 people on the coach and so the journey wasn’t too bad. We arrived in Arequipa at 5 am and were able to check into the hotel at about 7:30 after a long breakfast. We spent the day wandering another Plaza De Aramas and walking up to the mirador. The city is meant to be the most beautiful in Peru and the squares are all lovely but the rest is so tatty and full of rubbish – the poverty is quite easy to see.

The next day, we booked our Colca Canyon tour and went to meet Juanita. She is a frozen girl that was found on a stratovolcano, Mount Ampato, nearby in 1995. Despite Sergio’s (our Inca guide) insistence that the Incas only made offerings, we learnt that the most beautiful children were chosen as sacrifices to Pachamama (Mother Earth) when they believed a disaster was about to happen. The children were taken early from their parents at about 3 years old, raised together and then sacrificed at the chosen time by being given chicha (very strong beer type concoction) and when they’d fallen asleep bashed over the head with a star shaped stone on a stick. The guide was very insistent that they felt no pain from the one blow! They were then buried with ceremonial objects and small dolls of themselves. Juanita was in a museum in Arequipa, still frozen in a box for people to see! The moral of this would be to make sure you’re children weren’t too beautiful as babies as the parents had no choice in the matter and it was actually a great honour to be chosen. Heartbreakingly, the parents were present at their child’s death too.

To cheer ourselves up after this , we then went for a pisco sour (the local cocktail) making workshop. We hadn’t had one yet due to our sobriety because of the altitude and this seemed a good way to find out what we’d like. After quite a few very strong shots to taste the neat pisco and then the fruity ones, we decided that the passion fruit one was best and that’s what we will be ordering should we get one in the many happy hours around.

On Thursday, we were picked up at 3:30 for our Colca Canyon trek. It is the second deepest canyon in the world and is famous for the condors that fly over the top of it. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see them that day and after a stop for breakfast, we set off down the first 1000m. It was incredibly hot, was very narrow with steep drops (no barrier of any sort, of course) and the floor was made of rocks that slipped underfoot so one of us ended up very gracefully on their backside several times. However, when we did look up it was pretty spectacular. We stayed the first night in my first hostel which on first glance wasn’t too bad. Except we didn’t realise that the the glass in the windows didn’t meet in the middle, left a light on and came back to 1000s of mosquitos over the walls and ceiling of our room room. Half a can off bug spray helped and we went to bed with 50% deet on our faces instead of face cream! To be fair , it worked and we were bite free in the morning.

The next day was much easier with a 2 hour walk through the bottom and fertile part of the canyon descending another 200m. Our guide pointed out different types of flora and fauna as well as the potato and avocado farms.Our next hostel looked relaxing even from afar and we spent the afternoon lazing by our first pool which was rather lovely. Lunch and dinner there was tasty and the room looked great until you realised glass in the windows was an optional thing in the canyon. After the previous nights mosquito issues, we chose not to put on any lights and so were in the dark from 6! We had some lovely chats with Ralf (a Polish/Aussie who was in our group) as well as others who had worked their way down from Columbia where everyone we’ve spoken seems to have come from.

The next day, we left the hostel at 4:30am for the climb up so that could be completed in the shade. As you imagine, the surface didn’t make this easy and we were there with many people puffing up dealing with the surface, steepness and altitude. We had been told the climb would take 2 and a half to 4 hours which felt like forever at the start. We were very much plodders and didn’t stop much as it was hard to get going when you did. We did the whole “leapfrogging” thing with a group of youngsters who paused a lot (where we’d pass them) and then they sped ahead of us with their young legs. It was all very jovial and there was talk of who owed who a drink! Callum was very pleased that our fifty something legs made it up in front of the young legs in 2 hours 45 mins. I did remind him that it was not a competition or an endurance holiday and that it was meant to be enjoyable too! To be fair, he did restrain from booing at the people who paid 70 soles (£18) to go up on a mule though he very much wanted to. They didn’t look at you as they went past, Callum believes this was due to their shame!

On the way back, we had the whole trying to sell us lots of things so it took us 8 hours to get back to Arequipa after breakfast rather than the 3 we had hoped for but we did finally catch sight of the condors which did look quite impressive.