Today we are heading out on an Arequipa Day Tour.  Now let me warn you if you plan this to put on your running shoes, as there are so many places to be visited on this half-day tour and you will wish you had a whole day.

Shop Around For The Best Price

©Exploramum and Explorason – The lovely Coach for our tour

Free Fun on our Arequipa Day Tour

As we drive off through the old city on our Arequipa Day Tour, we go down some great slopes, and my son screams with delight. I love this as we laugh and have some fun together. Travel is not all fun. It can be tiring at times, so these moments add to our pleasures of exploring the world.

Worldschooling

First stop is a Llama and Alpaca farm but the guide is just way too quick here. I really wanted to spend time and educate my son – what we call world schooling, but I daresay most of the people on the tour are Peruvian or South American and they know all about them anyway.

We barely got time to see the lady in the picture above do her weaving. To take a picture, we did have to have time to dig out a coin though.

We tried to quickly get more photos, but our guide kept calling us to get on the bus. But we manage to talk with them just for a minute, and it was great!

Volcanoes

©Exploramum and Explorason – Enjoying the volcanoes – you can just see behind us on this sunny day

We also had a guide who could read English with little understanding. She did her best and that impressed me greatly, but sometimes it was hard to work out what she was saying.

It was great that we had a lovely couple on board. They lived in Australia – she was Peruvian – and gorgeous. Helped us with all we needed to know.

Arch Bridge and Reed Art

Next stop on our Arequipa Day Tour was at an arch bridge with lots of artwork there. We were allotted 10 minutes to explore the whole region. This reed sculpture display was fabulous we thought and as it had just been Easter the crucifix was a lovely and timely piece of work.

Helado Queso – Cheese Ice cream!

Our new Peruvian friend told us the foods we needed to try. This local region was famous for cheese ice-cream. Helado Queso and I loved it. It just tasted like creamy coconut ice cream. My son was not so keen – but I think it was ‘mind over matter’ for him.

Catholic Church

At the side of this square was a lovely church. We just had to take a photo, ignoring calls to return to the bus.

Park

The park opposite was filled with fountains and large pots. As my son had a personal blog on big things around the world, we ignored the calls to get back to the bus. We raced like lightning and took a few photos.

But when we finally got back to our Arequipa Day Tour bus, only the Aussie couple were sitting there. All the other ladies had taken off and there was a hunt to find them. So we had to sit and wait at least 15 minutes.  I think they were relaxing and enjoying the cheese ice cream and souvenir shopping.  Apparently, there are so many tours, we are allocated time slots to be at each place, so this has now meant we have less time at the next place.

Tour Bus Convoy

©Exploramum and Explorason – Volcanoes and babbling brooks make for a pretty tour drive

We drove a fair way around some dusty, backstreet roads. It was a double-decker bus convoy. All tour groups seemed to compete for leadership positions. We pass streams of water and can clearly see the volcanoes so it is a nice drive on a perfect day.

Your Guide Is Important

We soon learned that there was one tour group that has a really good guide. She had them learning all sorts of interesting Peruvian facts and their guide was so funny – we stopped and eavesdrop for a couple of minutes and learn lots.

We drove past the old President’s home. We then turned up at a lovely old casa.

Nobleman’s Casa

Inside the ‘casa’, our guide reads her English well and I really appreciate the effort she is making for us.  We had a small tour of each room and we learn this had been a nobleman’s home and was filled with antiques.

Next, on our Arequipa Day Tour, we have some family fun in the Cucina – kitchen. We took photos of each other bashing pots on heads and doing silly things. Mine are too silly for this article but it was a great laugh!

Horseriding

Horseriding is an optional extra on the agenda and it’s a short ride. The guy gives my son a horse that he says was crazy which I can’t personally understand.  Why would you give a kid a crazy horse? So he refused to let go of the reigns. As you can imagine, that made this eight-year-old very frustrated as he knows how to ride a horse, but alas, the language barrier means I can’t explain that to him.

As we go to nearly finishing the ride, Explorason gets a foot cramp and is screaming out in pain yelling “Pare Pare” (Stop, Stop) but the guy leading his horse won’t listen or stop to assist him.  I dash up and dismount and help my son off his horse.  We really need to brush up on our Spanish a bit more for these kinds of circumstances.

Returning To Arequipa

The whole area was lovely as it was a real Latino setting and I know you would love it if you visit here too. I know Explorason had a fabulous day (apart from the horse-riding cramp etc).

We then took a long drive back through the country taking in the panoramic sights, and seeing first hand the local villages and towns we passed through.

We definitely had a lovely group on our Arequipa Day Tour and a lovely day. Wow – I think it was nearly 2:30 pm when we got back to the old city and we are really hungry by now. So really I am not sure if it is a half or full day tour?

If you visit this region, please do an Arequipa Day Tour as it is well worth it.

Comments and Questions

• Do you go on tours when you travel?
• What are the things you love?
• What are the things you don’t love?
• Share your thoughts with us and our readers – we’d love to know.