The picture are:
1. Rocoto Relleno
2. El Misti
3. Cute little girl that lived where we were staying
4. The main square
5. The monastery
So our night bus got us to Arequipa around 7 or so in the morning. It was filled with backpackers, as I said it seems to be there preferred method of travel in South America. I don't like traveling at night though, and it was the only one we took. The reasons I don't like it are:
1. I arrive exhausted (I don't sleep well on them)and sure you save on accommodation, but the next day is almost a wash.
2. I don't think it is as safe.
3. I want to be able to see the country as it goes by.
But Arequipa was a wonderful city, and even though our first day we saw it through tired eyes we ended up staying three nights there and loving it. It is said to be the nations second most important city, and lies in the south of the country. It has a few volcanoes looking down onto its streets, most prominently El Misti, which is snow capped and currently inactive. Many of the buildings are constructed with sillar, a white volcanic rock, and the city gets the nickname "The White City"
We did take an overnight excursion away to Colca Canyon while we were there, but I'll get to that next. While in Arequipa we ate and saw the sites. There is a monastery in town that is like a small city within the city. It is called Santa Catalina and is of 400 years old. While one thinks of a monastery being an empty place for women praying and living in poverty, this was not the case here. It was quite lavish (for a monastery) and supposedly lots of the nuns were from wealthy families, had servants, and music and lavish furnishings. It was more or less the MTV Spring Break Beach house of monasteries.
We also while in Arequipa went out with some friends that we had met along the way. Some from the overnight bus, and then there was Jed from the plane ride in Nazca. Also I had my birthday there and we had dinner with Ben Koss, a tour leader for Trek America that we randomly bumped into. We had our favorite meal from the trip here, Rocoto Relleno, a spicy stuffed pepper dish.
We stayed with at a place that had a great roof terrace and volcano views. Also there was a travel agency on the roof, and that was run by a very nice family that was a lot of help to us. We actually booked our Colca Canyon tour with them and ended up staying with their brother in Cuzco. I highly recommend this family (to stay with and book your tours), check them out at
Next I'll tell you about our one trip away from Arequipa to Colca Canyon, the second deepest in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment