We arrived at Arequipa today at about 8am. We got off our bus and headed out to a prepaid breakfast that included scrambled eggs and hot dog (not too much food for the vegetarians in our group... or for anyone, really), juice and coffee. Next, we were told that we would have a tour hour city tour, which ended up being a 30-minute stop to see some volcanoes in the distance.
Standing at over 19,000 feet above sea level, the biggest one is El Misti. It last erupted in 1985, but an eruption and earthquake in the 17th century completely destroyed the city. There are a handful of other active volcanoes, none of which have caused serious damage recently.
El Misti is one of 80+ volcanoes in Arequipa. It has a symmetric conical shape typical of a stratovolcano, a type of volcano characterized by alternating layers of lava and debris from explosive eruptions. The magma feeding the stratovolcanoes of the Andes Mountains, including El Misti, causes ongoing subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. El Misti is situated between Picchu Picchu and Chachani, two smaller volcanoes.
After our brief visit, we got back on the bus for what we believed was the remainder of our tour. However, we were then given little snack packets and informed that we had a 3 1/2 hour bus ride to Chivay, the town with the Colca Canyon. So we sucked it up and played some games in the bus, listened to music and tried to rest a bit. Finally, we got into town and had a buffet lunch, which was not very good. Oh well, we were really close to our hotel then, and I ended up getting a single (very small) room on the first floor.
We had an optional visit to La Caldera Hot Springs, where naturally heated water runs into three large swimming pools. I was pretty tired and wanted to unwind in my room, so I decided to stay in (along with most people from the group). It was another of my many failed attempts at taking a nap, but I rested nonetheless.
At 7:30pm, everybody met back at the hotel to go out to a restaurant/peña. We had a set menu with a few choices from the appetizer and entree list. I ordered a large mixed salad with enough veggies to make me happy and a delicious lomo saltado (you can never go wrong with that here). I also got a large Arequipeña beer, since it's the local beer... it was pretty good, but Cusqueña is still my favorite beer in Peru. So, during our dinner, the band started playing and got my classmates up on the dancefloor. The whole thing was quite a spectacle: the music was amazing and the dancing hilarious... the dancers would throw their partners on the ground and whip them; the female dancer walked over her partner and lifted up her dress; men and women took turns carrying their partners on their backs; they dressed Tomás up as a woman; and at the end, we all gathered in a circle and danced together. Yianni (just realized I've been spelling his name wrong all along) broke out his backflip in the middle of the circle; Rosanna obviously did the worm; Andres showed off his amazing dance skills... overall, it was a blast.
I knew I should get some sleep but wasn't quite ready for the night to be over, so Diana, Rosanna, Kelsey and Karlayne and I went out to a discoteca. The whole town is pretty deserted no matter what time of day you walk around, so the nightlife was unsurprisingly uneventful. We found a club that played some reggaeton/Americanized salsa with two local Peruvian men who kept trying to dance (poorly) with us. It wasn't all that fun, so we walked back to yet another Irish pub where the rest of the group was. Some people were playing pool so I watched that, then walked back with them to the hotel so I could sleep at long last. 
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