Lindsey's Arequipa

Selina and I have been keeping busy the past few days and have covered

a lot of ground in experiencing the Peruvian culture. After our last

emails we had a few hours to relax back at our hotel before venturing

back out to check out a little bit of the nightlife that Miraflores

has to offer. In search of dinner we circled the main square a few

times not wanting to make the same mistake as we did for lunch. We

ended up at a moderately priced restaurant where we had our waitress

laughing at us when we were confused by how to eat our appetizer. Cold

corn on the cob with a dipping sauce and cheese.

The next morning we woke up early for our flight to Arequipa on

Peruvian Airlines. This is a new airline that just started flying this

past fall. Their planes looked like they were made of recycled plane

parts from the 1980s. I´m glad we landed and that part of the trip is

over.

We´ve been enjoying our time in Arequipa just bumming around the main

square of the city and into the neighborhoods. Our hostel is decent

with a nice staff that endlessly tries to sell us tours to Arequipas

neighboring Colca Canyon. We decided that hiking the Grand Canyon was

enough desert hiking for one year and declined the 3 hour bus ride to

look at another big hole in the ground. What we were really excited

about was a museum that has a frozen body of a 12 year old girl,

Juanita, that was offered to the volcano gods as a sacrifice by the

Incas. The artifacts were discovered by a geologist after the

neighboring volcano erupted and it´s ash thawed the frozen ground

enough to reveal Juanita and the trail that the Incas had taken

hundreds of years ago. Everything from her skin, hair, clothes and

other offerings were preserved in the frozen ground. In the early

evening we wandered the streets and came across the main downtown

markets with everyone out and about shopping for the holidays. At

first it felt like Arequipas version of the cluster of people on

Michigan Ave. (Obviously not nearly as big). The farther we got from

the main square the more the lights of the store fronts gave way to a

market feel. I started to go into a booth with shoes and realized

about 20 feet in that it might have been an endless black hole of fake

Addidas and Converse. We resisted the bootleg DVDs and went in search

for dinner. We ended up having a great 5 course meal for 23soles which

is about $8 each of soup, chicken, potatoes, crepes, coco tea, and of

course a pisco sour.

Today we have kept just as busy wandering the streets enjoying some

more market areas and views that look out over Arequipa and some of

the nearby volcanoes. I visited the main cathedral in town and had a

few minutes to say a quick prayer. Their nativity seen was gigantic

and I´m sure will be a site on Christmas. (definitely an easy place to

forget your children haha) We also spent part of our afternoon

visiting the Santa Catalina Monastery. It is considered one of the

most impressive colonial structures in the city and takes up a few

city blocks. The monastery was built in 1579 but has not been open to

the public until recently in the 1970s. Very good experience but our

tour was probably a little bit too long when the only descriptive

verbs our guide could describe things were as ¨old.¨ No shit.

Well we´re off to grab a small dinner and then bed. Early 6 hour bus

ride to Puno in the morning. We are hoping to go to one of islands in

Lake Titicaca, Amantani Island. They are the only island that is part

of Peru that has a small family run inn. Hopefully we won´t have too

much of a problem with the Christmas holiday.