Up, Up and Bolivia

Beginning the climb towards the sun....

After a whirlwind 24 hours in Lima we caught a flight out to the city of Arequipa. The ticket buying experience was a different one for us. We did it online at the airline office and then had to walk to the nearby grocery store to pay for the flight. This was probably the nicest grocery store I have ever been in, let alone ever seen when traveling. If only they had one in Argentina!!!!! Or Homer for that matter.

Anyways, back to the airport and we passed a Chilis that looked like it dropped out of the sky from suburban anytown. Very strange in the land of concrete and glass buildings.

Off we went after a quick meal at the airport for a short one hour flight. We sat on the left and were treated to wonderful views of the mountains that loom over the city. Lima truly is a desert town (2nd largest population wise in the world) that is on the coast, which is not intuitive. Actually being in town it was not noticable, but from the plane it was easy to see how arid it actually is.

If Lima is a desert town, Arequipa is the desert. Actually called the White City because most structures downtown are built of a local stone resembling limestone. The pictures of the monastary show how easy it is to work with these stones.

We did the normal logistical duties upon arrival - orientate ourselves, find a bed and food etc. The central area was very busy with people and Daewoo taxis zooming around. As like many places in the world, I think you loose your license if you do not honk the horn every 30 seconds....

We stayed in a wonderful Los Andes B & B that our friend Ashley recommended and found some incredible restaurants along the way. Falafels and Crepes to name a few unexpected surprises. (Sorry mom & Ray, the place here outshines The Crepe Place by a mile). The waitress even set fire to our dessert crepe which was tasty after cooling down.

We had 3 objectives in Arequipa - start the acclimatization process (elev = approx 7500 ft), get orientated in Peru and back into the travel routine and finally, try to hike the Colca Canyon. We suceeded at 2 out of 3.

The Colca Canyon is the world´s 2nd deepest canyon and a popular condor viewing and trekking area. Many, many companies offer trips there and to the borttom where there are small villages that have accomadations and food. Of all the treks around this one was supposed to be the most straight forward - so we began to attempt to do it ourselves.

We had the basics figured out and tried to secure the bus tickets for the 6 hour ride north. This was the trick. We headed out to the bus station to find a ticket for a 5-8 AM departure to no avail. We only found the 1 & 3 AM departure which we were not ready for quite yet. We never were able to get a straight answer about bus departures and everyone we talked to defaulted to recommending the standard $85 tour per person tour - even the bus companies.

Then came The Great Pinching Incident of 2008. For some reason Kevyn became the target of a severe pinch from a passing old lady at the bus station. Who knows why but apparently it hurt quite a bit. Whatever...

We just started to get a feeling that Colca Canyon wasn´t going to happen. We looked at a calendar and decided to nix it from our rather loose agenda to give us more time to attempt to visit some other areas. We regretted it a bit, but tossed two coins and both pointed to ¨skip the canyon¨ Next time, I guess.

Arequipa is a great city with a wonderful plaza. We passed our time strolling the streets, sipping coffee on the balconies overlooking the plaza. We also toured a Catholic monastry that has been in existance for almost 400 years. A virtual city within a city that was recently (30 years ago) opened for tourism by the government. About 30 nuns still live there in almost complete isolation, while the major portion is open to the public. The history of the Monastary is exhaustive and quite interesting. Some highlights are shown in the pictures and it is a labryinth of passage ways and narrow streets making for interesting exploration. The Pope visited in the 80´s and the Catholic tradition here is strong as a few churchs in Peru fly the Vatican flag - only 300-400 places outside Vatican City share this distinction.

After 2 nights of Arequipa we decided to keeping heading towards Bolivia, and up in elevation. We headed off to Puno, Peru (about 12,500 ft.). We hoped to make it all the way to Bolivia today but realized the transfer to Copacabana Bolivia is infrequent. So we will layover in an exceptionally nice hotel and see the festivals that are occuring this weekend. We had great timing as this is one of the biggest weekends here, but as the pharmacist said earlier today - "everyday is a festival - you do not have them in your country?"

Sadly not enough.....

and if we seem chatty in the next few days, we are taking it easy while we acclimatize and tapping away at a computer is doing just that....

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