South America - the end of the Spanish Era

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Arequipa- the white city

Day 1
After a harrowing 12 hr bus journey we arrived in Arequipa, to our hostel which seemed nice on the surface. We spent the morning checking out tours to go hiking in the Colca cannon, which had been recommended by a lot of people. Our legs were tired, however we decided if this is the thing to do here, we should do it. After going to many travel agents and not being to excited by the idea, we eventually went back to our hostel for a sleep.

However sleep was not what the hostel had in mind for us, rather noisy road traffic and lots of horn hooting. After half an hr and being sleep deprived, Jan could take no more, so we asked to move rooms. After moving three times, we seemed to settle on a room with no windows. However the hooting still penetrated the walls and while Janice moaned and put earplugs in her ears, Steve went on a mission to find a more pleasant sleeping abode. 15 minutes later he returned, to say there were two great options he had found. Within 5 minutes, we had packed up and moved to what can only be described as the most beautiful hostel with hot showers, a wonderful mattress and cable tv. It was like moving from a comfort inn to the 5 star Marriott hotel with decent prices.

Arequipa - Day 2
The next morning, we decided not to do the Colca canyon trip, as it would entail a lot of time sitting on a bus and not actually entering the canyon (we did not have time for the 3 day hike), but rather enjoy the beautiful sunshine, relax in the square and do a city tour in the afternoon.

Arequipa - Day 3
Our last day in this wonderful relaxing town, was spent going into a very interesting museum, where we learnt about the inca's offerings to the gods when natural disasters happened eg: earthquakes and how they found the body of a girl called juanita.

Our evening was spent on another bus journey, this time to Lima, we love to put ourselves through torture. This time we spent a bit more money on paid for a top of the range bus, where they played bingo on the bus, although it was in Spanish and then showed the most brilliant movie "Evan Almighty"- my gosh what a movie- only kidding. The only weird thing about the bus is that they served a veggie dinner but when it came to breakfast they tried to serve ham roles... they said they did not do veggie breakfasts...obviously Peruvians are only vegetarian after 8 in the morning!

Lima- A capital city with nothing to do

Day 1
Our morning in Lima was spent doing laundry, breakfast and general admin things. We also discovered the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had ended up in one street in Lima, no, not Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death but their modern day counterparts KFC, Burger King. Mac Donald’s and Starbucks. In the afternoon we did a city tour, which was supposed to be with a group, but a guide picked us up and told us that the tour bus was full and the company decided to give us a private guide and driver... yeah like we believed this, the truth rather being that know one else had booked on the tour. We actually were really lucky to have a private tour, not only did we visit the waterfront area and the main squares, but also a very interesting monastery and catacombs.

Our evening was spent at visiting the most amazing water park, where they had about 20 different fountains lit up and spraying water in all different directions and had amazing music emanating from them. Some of the fountains even had projections of ballet dances and we could walk through some of them, really an amazing site.

With the exception of these fountains, Lima has all of the charm, culture and personality of a candlelit dinner for 2 with Baldrick!

Day 2
We spent a lazy morning doing more admin, gosh it never does end and then went to visit the shopping centre by the waterfront, just to window shop as the shops were really expensive. The hostel we were staying at had a great selection of movies, so before we went to Chabad house, we indulged in some old movies.

Our visit to chabad house, was not as should we say welcoming as the one in Bariloche or Cusco. We did try and call them to ask what time it starts and to say we were coming and that I was a veggie, however the person we managed to get hold of spoke no English or Hebrew and our Spanish was not good enough. Any how we got there around 7.30pm, when the service only had another 10min to go, not such a train smash... but dinner was well.... There were not very many young people and we ended up speaking to 2 elderly American couples. But what we learnt was the rabbi was not there and upon the Rabbatzian request the women and men had to sit separately.. very odd. We started the meal with salad and when i told them I was veggie, they said that they did not have anything else, so salad would be my starter and main course... not so bad if it would be tasty, but this was not the case. Benching was not officially done and by 9.30pm we people started leaving and so did we... we did not really feel the love their.

Our flight to Santiago was at 7 am in the morning and we had to be at the airport at 5am, so instead of sleeping till 3.30am, we decided we should stay awake. We had originally thought the visit to Chabad house would last longer, but we were back at the hostel by 10pm, so watched some DVD's with some other people.

Santiago

Upon arriving in Santiago at midday we went to see if we could change our flight and get to Auckland earlier. As we decided we had had enough of South America. Amazingly this was possible as we tried to do this in Arequipe when it was not. We decided to spend 1 and half days in Santiago, rather than get straight on a flight.

Our first day was actually a bit of a blur as neither us had slept properly in 36 hrs, we mooched around and slept most of the day away!

Day 2
We did not managed to get organised to do a city tour, but managed to walk most of the city ourselves. We went to the a look out point and saw most of the city, although we were not to found of it!

We took an evening flight of 12 hrs, but spanned 2 days to get to Auckland because of the date line.

Reflexions of South America

It has been almost 2 months since we started travelling and what a journey it has been. There are many things we have loved ie: the sites: glaciers, mountains, inca ruins, fresh juices, delicious soups and meeting interesting people. There are certain things we are going to enjoyentering civilization, ie: eating fruit and veg, having proper toilets with no shortage of loo paper, being able to communicate to people and them understanding you, yoghurts in fridges that are actually on, drivers who believe that you do not need to hold your hand on the horn as you reach an intersection...

Anyway enough for now... here's to our new adventure in NZ

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New continent!
I can't believe you're onto the next stage already! - Rachelle