Travel Guide Arequipa: What to do? Tours – Part 1

Hey lovelies, it’s been a while since I actually sat down and wrote the first part of my Arequipa series. This one is going to be about tours and two parts. So much has happened in the past months and I’m sorry I haven’t been the best at writing. I really hope my memory works fine to try and remember everything on detail.

So, on this second part, I will be letting you know about things you can do while you’re in Arequipa.

One of my best advices, is asking the hotel/hostel you’re staying at (when you book your stay) if they offer any tours. They of course are an intermediary to probably some of the travel agencies in the main square. But I think it’s definitively going to be a lot cheaper than what you can find on the internet. This is something I did on my latest trip to Cusco and of course, also during the Arequipa trip.

Have in mind these are recommendations for things I did because I had a budget and not much time. Probably with more time I would have done more stuff or maybe even more adventurous stuff that lasted more than a full day.

Colca Full Day

Like I said, I paid for this one on the hotel I was staying, I think it was around S/.60 and if I’m not mistaken, it was from Peru Baby Lama. You were picked up from your hotel at 3 – 3:30 am. Then you have a 3 hour drive to the town of Chivay, where you’ll have breakfast. Then another hour drive to La Cruz del Condor, where you get to see how deep the Canyon really is and also get to see the condors. You make stops on the way back to Chivay, like at Wayra Punko, Antahuilque and Malca. You can choose to stop in the thermal waters of Yanque, and you can even a stop to zip line. I did it and it costed S/40. Back in Chivay, you make a stop for lunch and then head back to the city. Making also two stops at El Mirador de los Andes (4,800masl/15748feet) where you get to see all the volcanoes that are in the zone and a last stop at the Humedales de la Reserva Nacional de Pampa Cañahuas to see alpacas, llamas, etc. Then you head back to Arequipa.

Make sure you have enough water, sick bags and warm clothes and also comfy ones. Because it’s super cold in the morning and then it slowly gets warmer. But you freeze in the morning. I ended up buying a lot of things to warm me up at some of the stops.

Reserva Nacional de Salinas y Aguada Blanca

For this tour, I was picked up at the Main Square. I was supposed to be be picked up at 5:45 or something. Well there was a mix up with the times and I had to wait a lot of time to be picked up. So make sure you guys have the right time. Anyways, after they picked me up, we picked more people up and went on the way. If you’re one of those who gets car sick after a while of going up and round the mountain, then I highly recommend you to sleep. We make a stop in thats’s very near the Misti and Chachani volcanoes, you can take pics there and then make a stop at a little town to have breakfast. We’ll be back there for lunch later. Then we head to the little and not so little salt lagoons and salt flats where you get to take water mirror and perspective pictures too. You’ll also get to see a lot of animals like llamas, vicuñas and alpacas as well as flamingos, etc.

This tour was operated by Allin Capac. Honestly, super recommend it, our tour guy Mario knew a lot and was super friendly and the best thing is that he actually took the time and effort to take everyone amazing pictures. Why do we need Instagram Boyfriends if there are Instagram tour guides right?

Ruta del Sillar

This was the shortest tour I took… just a morning and I think it was like S/.30. I don’t remember, not I really paid attention to which agency operated this tour. We picked some people up near the main square. Made a stop at a place to hear more about the volcanoes and take some pictures. Then it takes a 40 minutes ride to get from the city to the sillar quarries. They’ll explain how they cut the sillar, you can take pictures. There’s some parts with an extra cost (S/.5) and the entry ticket is S/5. Then you head to Culebrillas Ravine, it’s a 20 minute walk (you get down and then got to get off it later). You’ll be able to see petroglyphs from the Wari culture made over 1000 years ago there too. It’s amazing.

Hope you like this post and be prepared for part two of what to do in Arequipa, but things that are in the city or nearby. And the last part of the series, which is where to eat.

More travel posts here