Arica, Putre & the Lauca National Park

I had started this post, and will leave most of it as already written,  before we suddenly had to change our plans as Craig wrote in the last 2 posts.

We continue to find Chile very friendly. Arica, on the Peruvian border is a city of of ~230 000 people on the ocean, and in the desert and its downtown area resembles some in Europe more than what we saw in Peru - pedestrian streets and all.
I enjoyed the youngish guys we saw perform in cross walks when the cars were stopped - they didn’t hold up traffic and quickly walked around with their hats once the light turned.
There are plenty of traffic lights and cross walks, and cars yield to pedestrians even when there are no lights. This has not been the case where we visited in Peru. But the language barrier continues to be a problem. Only one woman spoke English at the airline office, and we continue to use google translate when my extremely limited Spanish fails at hotels and guest houses.

Link to Arica, Putre & Lauca pictures

Arequipa & the Colca Canyon

Seems the nuns had a huge library at their convent; now a museum

Craig’s haircut by an almost 80-year-old barber

Craig has taken interesting pictures also from our recent bus trips in southern Peru. Will post 3 towards the end of the text; not sure if I cropped them too much...

From Cusco we flew to Arequipa, the 2nd biggest city in Peru. Downtown is built with sillar, a white rock, mostly by the Spanish, and it is considered one of the prettiest cities in Peru. It is in the desert, and surrounded by tall volcanoes, some of which are active per a taxi driver. The center of town is very nice with a colorful Plaza de Armas (again). The outskirts are poor, grey and dusty, as seen from the bus to the Colca Canyon, ~6 hrs inland.

We had read about hiking options in both the Cotahuasi, and the Colca Canyons. The latter is a very popular tourist destination, and we had thought going to Cotahuasi might be more fun. But it is even further away, and the bus schedules are very inconvenient. So we took a local bus to Cabanaconde, one of the main places to see the Colca Canyon from. Both of these canyons are amongst the deepest in the world. On the trip there the conductor seemed to fill up the radiator several times.. Craig was a bit worried because you go through desert the entire way.

Link to Arequipa & Colca Canyon pic’s

Cusco & Our Vilcabamba Trek

Part of an Inca Temple Site 

Trekking..

Llamas at Machu Picchu

Cusco is a very nice town of some 100 000 people. The historic center is full of tourists, but this didn’t bother me. They mostly looked like us in their ‘trekking’ pants etc. Both the usual 20-somethings and now also people our age. We were told the town is safe, and we walked all over the historic center with no difficulties. At an elevation of some 11 100’ (3400m), the many steep stairs presumably helped us get ready for the even steeper slopes on the trek.
Our first morning in Plaza de Armas (seems all central squares in Peru share this name), I initially laughed when a shoe shining man wondered if we wanted our hiking boots cleaned. Then I noticed a guy on a bench having his boots cleaned... Ours were by no means very dirty - seems worth their while to ask, though.

Link to Cusco, trek and Machu Picchu pictures