Back to Arequipa, The White City

Dear Everyone,

Since my last entry I have had problems with the internet access at every place >I have been. So I will do my best to try to catch you up.

I had a great flight from Lima to Arequipa, was met promptly and professionally at the airport and taken to my hotel which was lovely, except that their internet didnt work. I was then taken on a tour of Arequipa, which is called the White City. It has that name because it is in the heart of volcano country and during the Colonial Period, when Spain was colonizing South America volcanic rock is the most prevalent building material avaiable. Here the volcanic rock is white and virtuially all of the buildings are built of white volcanic stone--hence, The White City.

I had a lovely dinner and the next morning I was picked up early and taken to a village near Colca Cañon. The village is called Chivay and it is exactly what you would picture a small Andean village being--a csmall central square with the Church on one edge of the square and the municipal building on the opposite side of the square. It was a 5 hour drive to get to Chivay and along the way we went up to 15,000 feet in elevation. We saw wild vicuñas along the way. They are like llamas but have a much longer necks and their wool is infinitely more valuable.
I started this post yesterday and in the middle the computer cut me off. So I will start again.
While in Chivay they were still celebrating Carnival. They played and danced all night and even were continuing when we left town after lunch the next day. This is a relatively poor community so the little girls ansd ladies wore their best dressses and added lots of paper decorations as well as balloons and some even tied plactic wash basins and kitchen pots and pans to their dresses. The music was provided by the men and boys who played drums VERY LOUD and they played home- made flutes made from PVC pipe with holes drilled in them for the finger holes used to change the notes Beautiful music it was not, but what it lacked in suffistication it made up for with creativity and community fun.
We went to Colca Cañon and it was gorgeous and we saw lots of Andean Condors. I got some great shots too. we also saw an Andean Fox, a very rare sight-no photo though he was too fast.
Last nuight back in Arequipa I had dinner with a British fellow I met on the trip to Colca. He was a lot of fun and we had a greaqt time.
This morning I was picked up at the hotel at 5:30 AM and went to the Arequipa Airport to catch an early flight to Cuzco, the gateway to Machu Picchu. I am now in Cuzco and have the entire day free. Cuzco is over 11,000 feet in elevation. the weather so far today is clear. Lets hope it continues. Tomorrow afternoon I have a city tour of Cuzco, and very eaqrly, like 5:00 AM the next morning, I take the train through the Sacred Inca Valley for two days at Macchu.
Well, that is it for now. I will be back later with more stories.
Love to you all,
Glenn+
PS Youprobably have noticed I dont use apostrophes. It is not because I have forgoten how to spell, the problem is I cant figure out how to do an apostrophe on the Spanish Keyboard. They are very different and some things ae just hidden.
Adios from Cuzco, Peru