Wednesday 17 December - Arequipa

Before breakfast we went out for a walk as the city was waking up. The main square was a couple of blocks away from the hotel and looked very attractive with little shops under an arched walkway. The city is overlooked by three volcanoes and the altitude (2400 metres) gave a feeling of fresh air and clear light.

We visited the cathedral, which was on the main square but had a very understated look to it. Light and airy inside, it was almost deserted with a few small groups being taken around. Upstairs there was an interesting exhibition of old church items, such as the bishop's black robe just worn on Good Friday, and some crowns weighing over 3kg, like the other regalia decorated fulsomely with gold, silver, precious stones and diamonds.

As we walked around the town we enjoyed a "queso helado" - iced cheese, actually coconut flavour ice cream shaped like a cheese. And saw a demonstration in the main square, which we thought would be exciting, but was actually just asking for the mountain trout species to be protected.

The highlight of the day's sightseeing was a tour of the old nunnery - actually called a monastery, but had only ever housed nuns. It was a large city within a city, based on, and with streets named after, Spanish cities. The site was almost deserted, and we strolled around with our guide Carmen. Apart from an area where a small number of nuns now live, we had access to pretty much the whole site and were free to walk around and take photos.

Before heading back for a rest in the afternoon we had a coffee and sandwich in the nunnery cafe - leisurely service but a lovely peaceful atmosphere.

In the evening we popped into a mini supermarket on the main square, and marvelled at the collections of herbal tea and the exotic fruit. At the fruit counter an enthusiastic local came up to us to tell us how tasty it all was and how Peru has everything. There are four climate zones! he cried, but ran out of steam when naming them (costa, sierra and selva, we got...) and he scurried off with three fruits in a bag. Finally we located the laundry where we had left 4.4 kg of washing in the morning, retrieved it and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner was at the ZigZag Restaurant, one of the best in Arequipa, for a blow out. I had a fantastic filet of alpaca steak, cooked on a hot stone which was brought out to me (and they gave me a paper bib to wear to stop the sizzling from damaging my shirt). It was delicious, tasting like lean beef, and served with creamed cheesy quinoa. Lovely service too. Sion had tagliatelle with alpaca, as you do, and we both finished off with mousse. A very pleasant ending to a great day.