South America Day 7

We left Arequipa early morning and had a scenic drive with lots of dramatic views through the Andes mountains which took us up and over a high pass, 4910 metres.  We passed lots of alpacas, llamas and vicuña's grazing on the high Altiplano.  We stopped for a group made picnic lunch along the roadside and then at a tourist pitstop for some local 'tripoli tea', a hot herbal tea drink made from coca leaves, mint leaves and another leaf (I forget its name) which has natural aspirin properties.  It's supposed to help with the high altitude. The high altitude was a bit of a problem for a handful of people, one girl Ashlyn felt really unwell. Once we ldescended though things improved.

We descended down to Chivay, a pretty small mountain town sitting at 3460m where we stayed the night.  When we arrived, to our sutprise, there was a local dance competition taking place.  Lots of different local dance groups dressed in traditional costumes did a parade up and down the street before starting their dance contest which we sat and watched for a while.  Chivay must be well known for its dancing as there were lots of statues of different kinds of dancers dotted all over the town.

Later we all went to a local hot springs about 2km away which was really nice and relaxing.  Vikki our crew leader, plus Tony and Sadie did their 'ice bucket' challenge whilst there (a current trend for charity on Facebook - don't even think about nominating us!).  We had another group victim of the high altitude, Franco, a retired Italian guy fainted after getting out of the hot springs, he was OK after though thankfully.

Being at such high elevation it got very cold when the sun disappeared and during the night, our down jackets, hats and gloves were out.  In the evening we went for dinner at a small local cafe and got served a huge bowl of soup followed by breaded chicken, rice and chips for just over £1.  

There's lots of photo's , there was just so much stunning scenery to snap away at.