Burner Billy Adventures: San Pedro de Atacama to Arequipa, Peru

Leaving San Pedro de Atacama and NOT entering Bolivia was a little depressing. I just wanted to continue hanging with my new found friends, but in the back of my mind, I knew more great adventures lied ahead.

Crossing into Peru was quite a trek. I took a night bus from San Pedro to Arica, Chile (12 hours). From there, I hopped on a local bus that takes you from Arica to Tacna, Peru (about 1 hour). Since it was early in the morning and again my spanish was terrible, it took about an hour to figure out how to get on the bus. I was a little nervous my bag did not get on that bus because the bus station was a little sketchy, but once I crossed the border, my bag was sitting at the stoop. Relief! If anybody knows me, I was NOT calm during this trek and in my mind I was planning thousands of scenarios of how I was going to handle my bag being gone. Let's just say I hated my bus ride to Tacna. Anyways, from there I caught another was-supposed-to-be an 8 hour bus ride to Arequipa, Peru, however it turned out to be a 10 hour because the Peruvian police had to come on the bus at a local checkpoint to detain a woman. It was 100 degrees in the bus and the woman refused to get off. The adventures of traveling! After 24 hours (3 buses), I made it to Arequipa, Peru!

Once in Arequipa that night, I decide to book a 2-day, 1 night tour to Colca Canyon. Apparently, it's the deepest canyon in the world, and I will say it's really pretty, but it reminded me more of the vast valleys of the John Muir trail then say the Grand Canyon. We covered roughly 16km (9 miles) of hiking in two days and it was probably 1200m (4000 ft) of vertical climb in and out of the canyon. It was definitely beautiful and you stay at this amazing Oasis resort at the end of the trek. The whole tour was worth the $30 USD and that included a majority of our meals too!.

I met some great people like Tara from Vancouver and the lovely, mom, brother, and sister combo from Australia. Really enjoyed hiking with them and hopefully I can catch them on future adventures (Sam, I am crashing at your place in Buenos Aires. Ha)

Lastly, Arequipa (know as the La Ciudad Blanca, "white city") was the cleanest city I had seen on my adventure so far. The Plaza de Armas is surrounded by Spanish colonial architecture and engrossed with a gorgeous catholic church. On the free hike tour, I learned about the Santa Catalina monastery (it's a whole city block long and apparently was shut off to the outside world until somewhat recently), the last supper painting that is different from Da Vinci in Italy (Jesus is a little darker and the meal is of a coy [roasted guinea pig]), and learned that Mt. Misti is a very much active volcano that threatens the city of Arequipa if and when it has a big eruption (it's drawing comparisons to Mt. Vesuvius eruption in Italy circa 1944). Arequipa definitely has a lot of history and huge mountains to see on a clear day.