Bicycles, canyons, condors... AREQUIPA

Arequipa... From Lima to Arequipa, Melissa, her volunteer friends, and I took a 15 hour night bus with Cruz del Sur.  This bus company is a prize for Peru... I felt like I was on a really nice airlines.  We got blankets, pillows, FOOD (very good food), and watched films the entire time.

We arrived to our hostel (Pirwa) around 9:30 in the morning, changed our clothes, and walked to Plaza de Armas in order to book a biking trek going down the Volcano El Misti.  I had to translate and bargain for the group, which was at times exhausting, but really helped me improve my Spanish.. We had a nice lunch, and were in the Jeeps bumping up the trail of El Misti with the bikes on top.  

When we (the first jeep with 6 people) arrived at the biking starting point, we had to wait 30 minutes for the 2nd jeep to catch up.  To entertain ourselves during this wait, we swatted and ran from BOUS (Bugs of unusual size) fearing that if one were to sting, we might die.  The driver (who had already returned to Arequipa) had not informed us about the bugs, so there was no way to be sure.  Every guide we asked after that gave us the same reaction: 

"Señor, are these bugs venemous? If they sting us will we get sick?"

Guide:: *Shrugs shoulders* "Ehhhh.... isaaa Not going to hurt.... Ehh.. I have had no cases yet..."...

Reassuring...

So, finally, jeep #2 arrives, we get our bikes prepped, put on our helmets and knee pads and get ready to roll. **I must note that the last time I had ridden a bicycle was a year prior, where I was trying to get used to a bike a friend had given me for free... I was riding it in the parking lot outside of Jackson's Java (my work place in Charlotte) and after some ungraceful maneuvers, I landed myself into a tree trunk.... but the bike was safe** So, needless to say, I was a bit nervous about riding down a mountain path with gravel, sand, cacti, holes in the path....  But I only fell one time, right at the beginning trying to get used to the bike.  

The ride was incredible!!!  We rode for an hour just going down the skirt of the volcano on the mountain path. We continued on the paved road going down farther with deep curves and slopes, and then biked up another mountain to a village... Out of the 10 in our group, 7 of us are women and 3 guys.  The 3 guys, the guide and I were the only was that made it to the top (yes... I walked my bike up the hills) the rest hopped into the emergency jeep to just enjoy the view.

When we returned to the hostel we were all exhausted.  We ate, booked our tour of Canyon Colca for the next morning, and went to bed early, knowing that we would have to be ready for the tour bus at 3:30AM. 

The tour consisted of 3 hours riding in the bus until the town of Chivay, which is the entrance to Canyon Colca.  Here we had our breakfast, drank Coca Tea to prep ourselves for the very high altitude, and tried to wake up.  

ANother 1.5 hours of bussing up winding roads, watching the beautiful scenery of terraced farmland and valleys pass us by.  We stopped at the Condor Landing, where tourists come to watch the condors fly while the sun is out.We trekked around this area for 2 hours.  Each person feeling a bit weak and dizzy, short of breath, and heat.  All but the heat are some symptoms of Altitude Sickness.. Only one from our group suffered worse much later, but during this time we just took our walking slowly.  

We bussed back the 3 hours, after eating a very late lunch in Chivay, returning to Arequipa around 7:30PM. Again, too tired to really do more than rest, we all packed our bags preparing for our buses the next day.

Sunday was our last day together.  We had left this day for touring the central area of Arequipa.  We visited a Colonial Convent which is still being used today, and also saw the Ice Princess Juanita (archaeological  find) in her museum.

After Melissa and her friends left for the bus station, I met up with my friend Martin, whom I had not seen in 3.5 years, also studied at UNCC.  He showed me around his part of the city, and we ate lunch together. It really was great to reconnect with him!!

(The hat I am wearing in this photo I bought in Arequipa)

  

Next....Cuzco!!

Plazas, Parques, familia.... LIMA

Lima...What luck I had to already have amazing contacts in the city of Lima.  My dear friend Mayra (she is Peruvian but lives in FV) informed her brother Carlos that I would be travelling, he and I became friends on the great Facebook and he picked me up from the airport when I arrived.

  
After his uncle Rando and the uncle's mother met me and spent some time around me, they invited me to stay in their home rather in a hostel.  They live in between the communities of San Luis and San Borja.  Every day consisted of a very basic routine as I spent the mornings with the aunt while Rando was at work at 3:30am and sometimes Carlos was at the airport working as a firefighter. We would both be up and moving around by 7am, go buy the pancitos  (Bread), palta (Avocado), and some meat  or cheese, for our breakfast.  

We would drink our tea with  the meal, wash the dishes, clean the house, and help Rando with his work when he returned to the house.  Lunch would normally be in a very local and VERY delicious peruvian restaurant within walking distance, and then back home to relax and let the Aunt and son watch their novela.  
When Carlos was not working at the airport (24 hour shift, 48 hours off) he would take me to see different sites around Lima: Plaza de Armas; Parque de Agua; Castillo de Felipe Real; Parque de la Amistad; Peña del Carrajo...One night he had his friends meet up at a football (This is REAL football -soccer-...not American football...) field and we played a pick up game for an hour.. I scored a goal!

 Plaza de Armas

Parque de Agua


On the first Saturday I was in Lima, the niece and her husband arrived from Arequipa to stay for a few days.  The husband is an amazing chef and would literally cook day and night for us, clean all the dishes and the table, and never stop singing and smiling.  They prepared Caldo de Gallina (A delicious chicken stew), Aji de Gallina (Spicy Chicken with potatos), and many other very Peruvian dishes so I could leave the country with a rich flavor in my mouth (I truly still dream of those meals!).  





Canchitas are little corn kernels which have been toasted so the inside is soft and yummy and the outside is crunchy and salty.... They are nice little "before meal" snacks....and one aided in breaking one of my molars.  

So, I was able to acquaint myself very well with a local dentist's office as through 6 different visits they had to take out the tooth's nerves, chisel off more and more of the tooth, prepare the crown, and finally fit the crown.   I was shocked at how well they worked, and that it was jaw-droppingly cheap.  I might be temped to pay the airfare to go back and forth from now on for the sake of bettering my teeth... 
Normally, Rando and Carlos accompanied me to the dentist's office, as they have a car, but one day I was scheduled to come in during the morning while both Rando and Carlos were at work... So I took a taxi...Lets just say that a normal commute of 10 minutes (with bad traffic) took me 1.5 Hours: 30 minutes in a taxi with a driver who had no idea where my (very bad) directions were meant to take me... 15 minutes of roaming around a street trying to find a friendly SAFE person to ask for help.. Finding said Angel in form of a security guard, having him call the dentist's office (I did not know how to call office numbers from a cell phone.. it is a bit tricky) receiving good and exact directions... 15 minutes waiting for another taxi, and the security guard ordering the driver to make sure I safely arrive, and literally to wait and watch me walk through the door, taking down the driver's license number to secure that nothing would happen to me, and another 30 minutes to arrive at the door of the Dentist's office.  The dentist and assistant were very worried about me, but we all laughed about it as they prepped me for the day's tooth events.  They dropped me off at the house when finished, and Rando and his mother were frantic and worried as they had been informed by Carlos (I had been texting him through the entire adventure) of what had happened.  By the end of the day we were laughing about it, but the location where I had been dropped after the first taxi really is a very dangerous area (everyone was telling me that... including the first taxi driver)..

On a more relaxed note, I had 2 other friends with whom I was able to meet up with in Lima.
Melissa, my bosom buddy from London who I met 4 years ago when she was on exchange at UNCC my freshman year, was volunteering at a day care in Lima.  We met for coffee one evening and planned our trip to Arequipa (it was a group of 10 people).  Country # 3 for the Belle Fanatics!







Kelly, my other friend, is another acquaintance through family in Charlotte.  She is Peruvian, and has an aunt and uncle in Charlotte who are friends I met the last week I visited Charlotte before leaving for Chile.  She came out with us to Peña del Carrajo (it is a bar that puts on a show about music and folkloric dances in Peru), and we met up another evening to eat at Norky's, a chain Peruvian restaurant, where we ate a parilla and drank some delicious red wine and sangria.


Lima was filled with amazing people with big hearts, wonderful Peruvian culinary art work, history, and some adventures.  Gracias a todas esas personas.. que bonitas memorias tengo para compartir...


Besos!!xx