From Puno we headed to Arequipa, the 2nd largest city in Peru.

Arequipa is known as the white city as many of it’s colonial buildings are built from local volcanic rock and sparkle in the sun. 
The city is beautiful and on a clear day from the roof top of our hostel, Mercarderes Backpackers, we could see 2 volcanoes near town. Pretty amazing view for eating breakfast.

On our first day we did a free walking tour. We got taken around the city, shown the sites and given few tasty testers of the local cuisine. Specialties include chichi, pisco sours, fried fish with chilli sauce and queso helado (cheese ice-cream). Yes that’s right, cheese ice-cream. HOWEVER, it’s important for me to note here that there is no cheese in said ice-cream, it’s cinnamon, sugar, milk, etc.. and delicious. It purely has the name because it LOOKS like cheese.

6 hours outside of Arequipa is the Colca Canyon and valley, arguably the worlds 2nd deepest canyon (depending on where you get your information from).This was the main reason we came to visit this city.

Now we were faced with an important decision to make, would we trek the Colca Canyon by ourselves (and save some $$$’s) or take the easy way out and do a tour?

We eventually decided on doing a tour, for no reason other than when we worked it our money wise it wasn’t going to be super different and we wouldn’t have to organise our own transport, accommodation and meals. So it was easier. I’m not saying this is what everyone should do but we were all happy with the decision and since doing the trek, we’ve still got no regrets.

We did a 2 day,1 night trek with Peru Schweiz. The tour cost 120 Peruvian nuevo soles (roughly $50 AUD) and included meals, accommodation and transport to and from the canyon. All we had to do was walk, at whatever pace we wanted.

Here is a super QUICK overview of of 2 day Colca Canyon trek. Read on for more information.

First day
3:30 a.m. Hostel pick up and leave for Chivay.
6:30 a.m. Arrive to Chivay and have breakfast.
8:30 a.m. Arrive at Cruz del Condor (the Condor Cross) to observe canyon and hopefully condors
10:00 a.m. Arrive at San Miguel and start our descent into the canyon.
1:00 p.m. Arrive at San Juan de Chuccho for lunch and a break
2:30 p.m. Continue the walk via villages of Cosñirhua and Malata before beginning descent to Sangalle known as the Oasis.
5:00 p.m. We arrive to the Oasis, swim (if sun and group makes it in time) and settle in to accommodation
7:30 p.m. Dinner and overnight.

Second day
5:00 a.m. We ascend the canyon from the oasis to Cabanaconde.
8:30 am Breakfast and rest legs in Cabanaconde before heading off for rest of days activities in the van.
- Hot springs
- Lunch (buffet)
- View point
- National Reserve
6:00 pm Arrive back in Arequipa ready to sleep forever


DAY 1:

We were picked up at 3:30am from our hostel and taken to Chivay for breakfast. From here we headed on to Cruz del Condor. WHERE WE ACTUALLY SAW A CONDOR! It was beautiful.. and huge! With a wingspan of 3m it is one of the largest flying birds in the world. As it’s the wet season in this part of Peru currently we were not expecting to see anything as they’re known to hide during rain and cloudy conditions. However luckily for us hit was a beautiful day, and we got to see a huge andean condor fly right over our heads several times, and land on a rocky outcrop for some awesome photo opportunities.

From here we continued on in the van to San Miguel, where we were dropped off to begin our trek.

Day 1 consisted of 19 kilometres of walking. A tough on the knees 5km downhill start to the bottom of the canyon, followed by roughly 14km of up, down and flat terrain. Whilst it sounds like a lot, there was plenty of time for breaks and snacks along the way.

After the first downhill section we crossed a bridge at the bottom of the canyon and headed upward for roughly 20 minutes before stopping for lunch in San Juan de Chuccho. After a break and a tasty meal - alpaca, salad and rice - we headed onwards to Sangalle where we would spend the night at a well known hostel, The Oasis.

The Oasis is a series of small shacks with beds surrounding a much needed and refreshing pool. We had dinner and a couple of cheap mojitios before passing out early, ready for our pre 5am wake up. 

Day 2:

We got up before dawn for a planned 5am start to trek up out of the Canyon to Cabanaconde. We got up in the dark and set off with out breakfast. We only needed torches for the first 20 minutes or so before first light, and the rest of the time we could just concentrate on walking

I’m not going to lie - the walk was hard. Not the toughest thing I have ever done, but far from the easiest. We climbed from about 2200m altitude at the base of the canyon to 3300m altitude at the top in just under 2 hours. However the scenery was absolutely amazing the entire time, and when we reached the top drenched in sweat just after the sun peaked over the horizon, we were treated to one of the most memorable views I have seen in my entire life. We got to hang around at the top for around an hour waiting for the rest of our group to complete the trek, and eating our own weight in bananas for sale by the lady at the edge of the canyon.

When the remainder of the group made it to the top, we set off again for another 20 minutes to a local restaurant in Cabanaconde for some well deserved breakkie. Plain scrambled eggs and nescafe had never tasted so good. 

The rest of the day consisted of a visit to Chacapi thermal baths, a stop off at a national reserve to see some cheeky llamas and vicunas and lots of sleeping on the bus.

We got back to our hostel exhausted, bed at 8pm? Yes please.

We’ve got a few more days in Arequipa before we head onwards to Cusco where we’ll spend about a week before we do our Inca trail to Macchu Piccu!

On the first day of our Ilha Grande adventure whilst sitting at breakfast on the deck of our hostel… (amazing location) we were approached by a couple of people working for a boat tour company, Jeronimo Tours.

We listened to the spiel expecting it to be like every other boat tour company in Vila do Abraão.  (I never counted the number of boat companies, however there had to be at least 150, which is heaps considering the village’s population is only 3000). However, this one was different! 

Jeronimo Tours was run on a small boat, took only 20 tourists MAX, visited DIFFERENT locations to the other boats, or at least the best same locations at different times to the other companies (meaning we would have the places to ourselves) and included a massive BBQ lunch and a couple of cheeky bevvies. All this taking roughly 9 hours for R$120, roughly $55AUD. We were sold.

We packed our things, woke Sammy up (as always) and headed for the meeting point on the beach (under the big tree…..). There were multiple big trees all along the beach, but nonetheless we found it. We were taken out to Jeronimo’s boat via a smaller dingy, set ourselves up on the bow and got ready for an exciting day ahead.

Jeronimo turned out to be a real person! He was an Argentinian who moved to Ilha Grande almost 20 years ago, so he knows the island and all of its nooks and crannies incredibly well, he was also one of the original tours. 

All of Jeronimo’s crew were incredibly helpful and friendly, including his shaggy 4 legged crew member Pepa. Especially helpful to us was a guy called Joaquin, from Argentina also. He spoke great english and resultantly was our lifeline to what was going on at each stop etc. He was also really interested in the island and it’s history which really showed when he would tell us facts and information about the sites we were visiting and the island itself. 

Ilha grande has a really interesting history involving slaves, pirates, political prisoners and gangs. Again, I don’t think we can do the story justice (so here is a link)

The day included 3 separate swimming/snorkelling/kayaking stops.

The first of which was Monkey Island. It was a deserted beach (that none of the other companies were allowed to visit) with a single house inhabited by an old woman who was there to sell soft drinks and water if we wanted. 

On the island Jeronimo and his crew supplied snorkels, kayaks and a large 5 person hawaiian outrigger canoe.
We stayed here for roughly 3 - 4 hours swimming, snorkelling, kayinging, sun baking and getting incredibly full on the insane lunch they provided.

The next stop was Lagoa Azul (The blue lagoon). We visited this around 4pm which was perfect as we had it to ourselves! Throughout the day we had seen heaps of other tour boats visit and all sit together at this tiny location. There was upwards of 15 boats visiting the same site at the same time!

The last stop was Bananal Beach. Here we had a swim and then went for a walk up to the Islands oldest church, and oldest Imperial Palm (which was huge!). Both of which were built/planted in 1834. Joaquin gave us all some information on the site and again, more on the islands history.
From the church site we walked down to another beach and were picked up by Jeonimo and the crew. 

On the way back to Abraão we were given a couple of drinks. A caipirina made from the famed 51 (the sugar cane liquor that had contributed to a few of our hangovers thus far) and a mix of juice and 51. 

The day was amazing and the weather could not have been better. We would DEFINITELY recommend this company. 

Thank you Jeronimo, Joaquin and the crew!

We've booked our Inca Trail trek for early March 2015. 

We were deciding between Peru Treks and Llama Path as we know people that have been with, and enjoyed both tour companies. Also both companies had been named in the "Top 5 Inca Trail operators" on numerous websites.

 From the million and one reviews we've read both these companies seem to treat (and pay) their staff the best. The way the staff  are treated and paid is really important to us when booking a company, both from a selfish point of view and a humane view. If the staff are paid and treated well they are more likely to treat us well, and give us a thorough and safe experience. It is also nice to know that the locals putting in the hard work on the ground are being paid adequately and not being ripped off by their managers. Many tour agencies can be run by foreigners who take a large amount of the profit and do not pay the local staff sufficiently.

In the end, after much deliberation we decided to go with Peru Treks, however that being said we would have happily gone with either company. 

Stay tuned for our review of Machu Picchu and The Inca Trail, we cannot wait!


At the time of writing this post Peru Trek's cost $595US per person for the 4 day, 3 night Inca trail trek all inclusive. 
We got it for $585 per person as you get a $10 discount per person when booking in a group of 4+.