We arrived into Arequipa at around five in the morning. I hadn’t slept hardly at all on the bus so I was completely shattered. The bus stopped right outside my hostel and luckily I could go straight to my room, unpack a little bit and then go to sleep.

I woke up just in time for the end of breakfast, which was a lovely buffet style breakfast, one of the best ones I have had in a long while.

I arranged to meet Alice in the main square around midday and we walked around the town for a couple of hours, browsing the shops and looking at some of the sights.

Arequipa is only at 2,380m so you can actually walk around without getting out of breath which is really nice. It’s called the ‘white city’of Peru because many of the buildings are built from sillar which is a white stone. This stone is quarried from the many volcanos that surround the city – there are three main ones, Misti, Chachani and PichuPichu.

After we wandered around for a bit and bought a couple of things, we went back to the main square and had lunch in one of the upstairs restaurants. From here you could see the Misti volcano in the background and also look down on the government buildings.

We decided it was a nice spot so we had a couple of Pisco Sours, chatted and watched the world go by. We then wandered to the supermarket so Alice could get some snacks for her trip tomorrow, which I’m actually doing the day after.

So it was a very relaxing day for me. Tomorrow I think I am going to buy a suitcase so I can start to buy some things to take home with me.