The hook
A white volcanic-stone city under three volcanoes, and four hours north of it a canyon twice the depth of the Grand Canyon where Andean condors ride the morning thermals up past the rim.
01Why it's worth it
Arequipa is built from sillar, a pale volcanic tuff quarried nearby, which is why the colonial centre glows in a way no other Andean city does. El Misti stands directly over it at 5,822 m, flanked by Chachani and Pichu Picchu. At 2,335 m it is low enough to be comfortable and high enough to serve as a first acclimatisation stop before Cusco or Colca.
The Monasterio de Santa Catalina is the set piece and deserves the reputation: a walled convent covering a whole city block, laid out as its own miniature town of lanes and painted courtyards, closed to outsiders for four centuries. The city is also the best place in Peru to eat in a picantería, the regional tradition of lunch-only cookhouses.
The Colca Canyon is the reason most people continue north. It reaches about 3,270 m deep — considerably deeper than the Grand Canyon, though far less sheer — and the drive there crosses a 4,900 m pass through vicuña country. Cruz del Cóndor is the viewpoint where Andean condors, with three-metre wingspans, rise on the morning thermals close enough to hear. The valley floor holds pre-Inca terracing still farmed by Collagua and Cabana communities, and the two- or three-day walk down to Sangalle and back out is a genuine trek rather than a stroll.
02How to experience it
Give Arequipa two days at the start of a Peru trip, for the altitude as much as the city. Take the Colca trip as two nights rather than the punishing one-day version — the dawn bus back is famously brutal. Be at Cruz del Cóndor early. If you walk into the canyon, the climb out is the hard part and starts before sunrise.
The honest note
The canyon is a descent, which means the work comes at the end. Dehydration at altitude is the standard failure. One traveller's advice on high-desert conditions came with a confession attached: "Had to ride the burro back up in Colca Canyon because I got dehydrated. Also, the meds for altitude make you dehydrated as well, so you really have to drink water." Hiring a mule for the climb out is common and not a defeat.
Conditions are harsher than the photographs suggest. As one description of the route puts it, "The trail is desert, low in oxygen and very cold at night." Sun at 4,000 m is punishing and the temperature swing between midday and dawn is large.
The condor viewpoint is a scheduled crowd. Cruz del Cóndor at 9 a.m. has coach parties; the birds are genuinely spectacular and the setting is genuinely a car park. Going early, or walking a little along the rim, changes it considerably.
From the locals
Arequipa is consistently named as one of the country's most likeable cities and, usefully, always with the canyon attached. A traveller mapping out where to spend time in Peru put it plainly: "Arequipa — another beautiful city surrounded by volcanoes and also has the Colca Canyon nearby." They gave Huaraz to the trekkers and Cusco to the ruins; Arequipa got the city itself.
The canyon also shows up in the kind of detail people only mention when they were actually there — an account of the apacheta stone stacks along the route, offerings "to the Mother Earth goddess called Pachamama… supposed to protect them on their journey," noting an active volcano visible behind, and adding why the protection is asked for: "The trail is desert, low in oxygen and very cold at night, so you can imagine why one would need Pachamama's protection."
And it turns up in a solo traveller's account of the moment a trip justified itself — a 52-year-old woman on a Colca group tour with five Costa Ricans in their twenties, one of whom, on learning she was travelling alone, said simply "que aventura!"