Tea was nice (´Doner Kebab´, made from chicken...) and so was getting a full nights sleep. We´ve nearly shaken off the bugs we´ve been carrying, thanks to the penicillin we bought over the counter...

Today was a good day. We started off by booking our 2 day, 1 night trip to the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world. We go on that first thing tomorrow morning. We also booked our bus tickets out of here - we go to Puno on 20th for Lake Titicaca. We have also booked a hostel in Cusco. We´ve decided we´re definitely going to go into the Amazon but as we´re not sure how we´re going to react to the alititude in Cusco (we might need more days acclimatizing) we´re going ot have to wait until we get there before we decide whether to do it in Peru or Ecuador.

After a great (and cheap) lunch we headed out on our lown little walking tour of Arequipa. The city itself is full of buildings made in white vocanic rock, hence it´s rather imaginative moniker, ´the white city´... It is the 2nd largest city in Peru with a population fast approaching a million. Unfortunately for it´s inhabitants, living in the shadow of El Misti (a big volcano) means that there are regular earthquakes. The last one in 2001 destroyed many historic buildings, although they have clearly patched things up since them as everything looks pristine nowadays. Our first port of call was the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, which was once home to 450 nuns. Now, only 30 are left (aged 18-90 apparently) and have all taken a vow of ´not meeting anyone else´as they are locked up in one corner. The Monestery (as monesteries go) was excellent, brightly coloured and still maintaining it´s century old charm. The entry price of 25 soles (about 4.50 UKP) was a bit steep though maybe it was this that led to only tourists in the grounds, no locals...

We then headed to the Museo Santuarios Andinos which houses the ´Ice Princess, Juanita´ a mummy of a girl who died 500 years ago. We didn´t get very far as it was shut, as was the cathedral and another church we wanted to visit on the Plaza de Armas. Never mins, we sat with our ice-creams and people watched for an hour or so until we felt compelled to give our seats to an elderly lady who could barely walk (interestingly she walked past about 20 locals who didn´t offer their seats without saying a word, and then got to us and started cursing ...so she got the seats...discretion, valour and all that...)

We´ve sent another parcel home, containing a couple of presents and the art we couldn´t send back from Argentina.