Arequipa

Arequipa was our base for several days - a white stone, colonial city where we ate like (bibbed, geriatric) kings, shopped amongst pig brains, and slept under the gaze of the overtowering El Misti volcano (and the gaze of Billy, a creepy gambling addict in the girls' dorm).

El Misti from bed

Bibendum

With our first view of the Andes, it wasn't hard to understand why the Incas revered the snow-capped mountains, even turning to human sacrifice when natural disasters occurred. Juanita is Arequipa's best-known celeb. But she dead - 500 years so. Her 14-year old body, sacrificed to the mountains, was preserved in ice, astonishingly so. Issy expected her to be still alive in an ice block (think Ice Age films). 

Local Hot Spots

Resembling Juanita, we arose at 3am one day to visit the Colca Canyon, the second-deepest canyon in the world at 3300m (twice the depth of the Grand Canyon). It is ridiculously epic, all the more so because of the Condors (wingspan 3.3m #whoinvitedthisguy?) that fly above it. I can only do justice to it through the medium of selfie:

On the precipice

Colca valley

The incas who populated and terraced the canyon were a weird bunch - they thought earthquakes were mountains getting it on, and deformed children's heads into a cone shape (causing the brain to pop through the top on occasion). Parenting - you're doing it wrong. 

Finally, we visited the Monasteria Santa Catalina, a citadel within the city. The nuns were originally from rich families, so it was their habit (pardon da pun) to go large - this changed, and so nowadays it's a meditative, mazelike place. On to cusco. 

With love