I love Arequipa for a load of reasons. Its beautifully situated in the Andean foothills, so the snow capped peaks are behind. The climate is great, with warm sunshine most days (but its not too hot). The city is beautiful, and the people are very friendly.

This is me lounging on a roof top with the Andes behind. The peaks are just shy of 6000m. The second time I visited the city Edith, Bryan and I stayed with my friend Christian in his hostel there. This was the type of view we had each morning from the dining room.

The big mountain that overlooks the city is El Misti. Its a 5822m dormant volcano. It would make a great climb and I'd love to do it some day. This is it at dusk seen over the city roof tops.

As I said Peruvians are very friendly and hospitable. We went out regularly with my friend Christian. And we were also brought out by Hanna and Fernando from Arequipa. We met them on a tour to the Colca canyon. This is us on the roof of Fernando's place having a barbeque. Left to right its Julie from Sydney (working with Oxfam after the quake), Edith, Bryan, Jane from London (also from Oxfam) and Hanna.

One of the joys of travel is seeing plants and animals that you normally only see in books or TV. This was the first time I saw a humming bird. It's small (about 6-8cm) and you can see it hovering just to the left of centre in this shot.