Arequipa and Colca Canyon

After leaving Sucre, it took a full twenty four hours of traveling to get to Arequipa, the White City of Peru. At this point I'm getting a little tired of busses. I don't understand how South American's aren't bothered by how warm they are. No ventilation and they can fall asleep under a heavy blanket with a jacket on.

 I learned from the father of the woman running my hostel that it is called the White City not just because of it's Spanish colonial architecture, but because a couple generations ago it used to be an incredibly white city full of Europeans. It has since become a much more mixed city.

Colca Canyon: All the details--without a guide

I don't normally do this because the nitty gritty details aren't super exciting. They're not the most fun for me to write, and since most people reading this aren't using it to plan trips it just hasn't seemed helpful. There are tons of other blogs that do a much better job, usually. But for Colca Canyon there is very little information on hiking in this canyon by yourself. And it's an incredibly easy thing to do. The planning part. The hiking's awesome but got some hills. (Duh Laurel, its a huge canyon.)

Carnaval in Oruro

Although Carnaval is one weekend, its celebrated the end of January and you could still see kids throwing water balloons at the end of February. Carnaval is the main celebration right before the beginning of Lent. It's generally celebrated with costumes, masks and parades. Of course this is accompanied with tons of alcohol and other things that are generally given up during Lent. Two Thursdays before the official guys night out, and the Thursday before is the ladies night out. Men weren't allowed into several of the bigger bars until after midnight, and several of the bars had sexy male dancers.