Blogs from Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru, South America - page 48

Hi all. sorry for the delay. weve been really busy taking spanish classes from 10 to 2 every day and then exploring in arequipa in the afternoons. we both like arequipa very much. it, for one thing, is so much cleaner - at least in terms of the air and the streets - than lima. also it is sunny!! thank god I thought I was going to go nuts in the constant rain and gloom of lima's winter! It's also much more laid back and, of course, smaller and easier to navigate. The language course has been great. Four hours per day of talking in spanish wipes both of us out though. it's all one on one classes so you're constantly conversing. up to today most of it was review (though much needed review) of the ... read more

Our 10 hour train trip from Cusco to Puno was just great! You´d think 10 hours would be a long, long day but it was thoroughly enjoyable and the scenery was spectacular. Something like the wild,wild west. The train consisted of 3 cars for 1st class and 2 cars tourist class and an observation car with bar. Our seats were two big straight back comfy chairs set before a raised table for our lunch service and a great view from the wide windows to our left. We calculated we traveled the 250 miles at 25 miles per hour! The lunch was great. By the way, as the lunch appetizer, I chose the tomato soup, and Dennis ordered the roast alpaca. It was prepared as thinly sliced pieces of medium rare meat with a sweet potato puree. ... read more

Hi again, We´ve found ourselves in an internet cafe yet again. They are cheap to use here, only 1 sol (around 30 cents) an hour. The only problem is connection speed... the photos upload slowly. But it gives us time to update the travel blog! We are staying in a wonderful hostal called Casa de Jael here. Two women run the place and live there too. They share their kitchen and living room with the guests. The hostal is upstairs on a busy street and it´s not fancy, but very homey. The kitchen has a small gas stove, a three person table, some plastic stools, and a cabinet. The women shared their dishes with us last night, so we shared our soup and chatted with them. There is an Irish man staying in our hostal who ... read more

On monday i went on a day trip to see ubinas, but this time to get really close. I was with a german guy Erhard and two Peruvians. We drove out there in a four by four and saw. Llamas, Alpacas, a rare type of deer and flamingos. We got within 3 km of the volcano and could smell the sulpher in the air. There was also a noise emminating from the creater that is similar to a jet engin. This was unexpected and pretty cool. Enough of that though. here is an BBC artical I found on the internet. Its more interesting than volcanoes. Potatoes spark Chile-Peru dispute A US study found that all varieties can be traced back to Peru.The historic rivalry between Chile and Peru has in the past seen them arguing over ... read more

**A quick note - I just accidentally published and then un-published a blog about the next four days, which we spent in Ilo. It isn't complete, and I still have to wade through the more then 300 photos we took while there, so it might we a while 'til the next post!** Jeff taught his 2nd day of undergraduate course today. Interestingly, he had 8 more students today than he did yesterday, so word of mouth must have been good! He was then invited to a meeting with the Rector (Provost) of UNSA. I’m starting to think he may really end up being famous here in Peru. Everyone seems to want a chunk of his time - which is really eating into our opportunities to get out and see the city. Elizabeth drew up a schedule ... read more