Blogs from Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru, South America - page 50

So started on monday with the classes my teacher Renzo is sound. Learning to count was no problem as I was doing the bingo on sunday. Every day it is two hours of theory and then into the city with the teachers to learn you stuff in real life. Friday we do a reality tour and will go to the slumps and orphanages. Today (wednesday) a city walk, yesterday to the market, nice with all the chopped off animal heads and bulls dicks being prepared. Loads of little cute hamsters for the Peruvian dinner and dried lama embryos. On monday we went to eat cebiche with our teachers, lovely seafood marinated in lime. Seafood is really good here, squid, octopus, sole, shrimps, sea snails etc etc. I also met my two roommates, Judith and Sabien, who ... read more

Hi there to one and all, well forget the Manu Chao experience,,, a nightmare of a concert best forgot... nothing like the shanty music we westerners usually hear from them. It was 3 hrs of hard punk head bashing stuff and Kate and I were pushed from behind the whole time as we were up on the barrier. She fainted and had to be carried off while I couldnt move in case we lost the 3rd freind we were with.There wre approx 3000 Bolivians in the space of a volleyball court. Anyhow, for $12 NZ it was a night to remember if not for the right reasons. Have been told since that Manu always play this sort of music at their concerts. La Paz was an interesting city. The capital of Bolivia, and second highest city ... read more

After another delayed flight from Lima I arrived in Arequipa, Saskia the owner of the Spanish girl was waiting for me and together we took a taxi to my new appartment, where I will be staying the next month. Quite a nice appertment, the two other unfortenately Dutch girls were not to arrive till saturday, So I was king for one day. But no water in the kitchen, no cooker and no fridge! So no nice cooking, no cold beers and no coca thea:( The cooker and water are supposed to be installed tomorrow, but I don´t believe it actually. So Saskia explained to me how to get into town with the bus, you have to say baja and then they stop. So got myself readdy hopped on a collectivo and went for the 20 minute ... read more

We are now in Arequipa, 1000kms south of Lima, 50ish k´s inland from the Pacific and a dizzying 2500metres above sea level. Since our last entry we have made the obligitory trip to Nazca to see the ´famous´ Nazca lines and taken a 10hour bus ride down here. On Monday 5th we took a flight from Nazca aerodrome over the ´Pampa´(flat desert) to see the strange lines and shapes from above. Apparently the lines themselves were made sometime between 400bc and 500ad, by various different peoples (some people theorise that aliens even contributed to them.....) Unfortunately the lines themselves, although still quite impressive weren´t as spectacular as anticpated. Many of them have been spoiled by jeep-tracks (the panamerica even cuts through one of the drawings) Some were really clear but some drawings were really ambiguous and ... read more

Nobody told me that the entire Peruvian coast is a desert. Its kilometer and kilometer of massive sand dunes. I was expecting jungles with wild monkeys and boa constrictors. It just shows how much I knew about Peru. The trip from Guayaquil to Ica, a pueblito a bit south of Lima, took 31 hours. Thirty-one hours! It was horrible. First, at the Peruvian border, the guard said I needed to pay $15 to get an entrance stamp, which of course, isn't true. When I informed him that I wasn't a moron and that I knew it was free, he said, "Fine. Fifty cents." I gave him fifty cents because he had my passport and the bus was leaving without me. Then I started to feel ill. My head hurt and my lips began to crack from ... read more