17th November

We had an 8.30am start which felt like a lie-in. Breakfast was outside and the sun was already baking. Paul told us last night that Arequipa gets about 360 days of sunshine a year. Result! He won't be joining us on the excursion for the next few days and will be catching up with his family.

Today we are off to the Colca Valley to see more wildlife (most notably the condors of Colca Canyon). The journey takes about 5 hours but has lots of photo stops and tea breaks. Our new guide is called Hilda. Don't be put off by the name - she is a Peruvian fox. We also have a few new people on the trip. A group of 3 Germans frm Munich. The grandmother of whom is like a Bavarian Margaret Rutherford. Our first stop was to buy water, we will be topping 4500m on the trip and you don't want to be dehydrated for that. We passed huge volcanoes on the roads out of Arequipa and the landscape became more barren as we climbed higher.

We soon passed through the Reserva National Salinas y Aguada Blanca nature reserve. Huge packs of Alpaca and Llama were soon spooted right and left and then we saw the less common Vicuña (Perú's national animal) - these are smaller, thinner beasts than their other camelid brothers and their wool is so fine and expensive that a Vicuña pashmina would fetch US$1500. Our first drink and toilet stop was in a place with no name - just a lot of poeple selling local crafts. I had another mint tea (muña).

We cracked on to our final destination where we will be staying the night, Coporaque. The hotel has an amazing view of the Colca valley with farms and terraces etched into the hills and 2 snow-capped volcanoes in the distance. There is also a semi-tame alpaca called Spot roaming the grounds who seemed to eat anything and everything in its path. The room is nice and after a bit of impromptu DIY to fix the rattling window it was perfect.

Lunch was a buffet but my God was it good. Salads, cold meats, cheese, soups and BBQd alpaca and chicken. "Eat as much as you can", and I did. We also met another couple on the tour - a retired surgeon and a surgical registrar from Bristol. They were over here to perform ENT operations on the locals of Cusco, Arequipa and Lima.

The afternoon activities were two-fold. Firstly, a walk around "the block" and then a trip to the thermal pools of Chivay, the capital of the Colca Valley. I declined the first, partly due to my over inflated belly from lunch. They took about 45 mins to walk, I think it was scheduled for one hour but I think Margaret Rutherford might have led the party. I waited for them in reception which was dull apart from when Spot decided outside lacked a certain warmth and then marched into the lobby with a groundsman in hot pursuit.

The spa was good (38 degrees C), despite looking like Gringo Soup from a distance. Stank of sulphur but wasn't as good as Baños last month. The pools are separated into Gringos and Latinos - this is partly due to the fact that the locals go there to exfoliate, shave and scrub all body parts which the Gringos find repulsive - according to Hilda. There were a couple of musicians to pass the hour quicker and a fully-licenced bar. Had a further chat with Hilda on the way back to the bus. Her spanish has to be the clearest I have heard in South America so far.

Dinner was another buffet and even better than lunch. It is like Club Med revisited. I had to undo my belt part way through the steak course - I don't know these Peruvian laundrettes must be shrinking my clothes or something.