Advertisement
Published: April 28th 2011
Edit Blog Post
The mind is a very powerful tool. You can use it for good or evil. You can make the most of an experiece or you can create your worst nightmare. Just as Buddha said 'The mind is everything. What you think you become."
I like to think that I'm a failry competent traveller. I have travelled on many buses, mostly alone and have always ended up where I've wanted to in realatively good shape, yes almost always tired but yes with all my belongings and a much better appreciation for movies played at a moderate volume and the knowledge that I will never marry a snorer!!
I added another successful bus trip to my list; this time a very quick ten hours from Cusco to Arequipa and for the great price of 30sol, haha take that over-priced Cruz del Sur!!
Delerious and a little bit grumpy (just a little bit!) I jumped into a cab and within ten minutes found myself out the front of a very nice hostel in the middle of nowhere booking a room. It didn't last long, my thoughts got the better of me and I realised as nice as this plcae was (think in ground pool,
theatre, staircase, games room and beautiful rooms) I wanted the rough and tumble, the hostel with the noisy bar and smelly toilets, the hostel with people that could potentially become my friends! SO I made up a little white lie about my friend booking into another hostel and I left! haha after two hours, a free microwave in which I cooked my delicous porridge, free use of internet to check facebook (totally necessary!) oh and to check out another hostel and I was out of there. What a great feeling that was to know I was making a great decision. So before long I wound up at the Wild Rover, a newer hostel in Areqipa, but one of a chain of crazy Wild Rovers around S.A. you'll be happy to know it was totally clean, with a great bar, awesome beds and some of the cleanest bathrooms thus far, bonus! I had to wait for a room but before long I found myself shacked up in a nice little four bed dorm with only one room mate....double score! A nice hot shower with great pressure and I was ready to explore.
Arequipa is an beautiful city, grand old volcanic rock
buildings , gorgeous architecture and clean. It has a lovely town square complete with fountain and it even has a food court with KFC, Hungry Jacks, Starbucks and Pizza Hut, just in case you get any cravings!
I spent most of the day, after meeting up with two swiss girls, scouring through the hundreds of tour agencies on offer before returning to my new humble abode and ejoying a beer with three of the nicest Irish lads I've met thus far. One beer turned into four, dinner at a very empty restaurant with a free pisco sour and a good old game of beer pong...which ultimately led to table top dancing (not me) deep discussions about the indigenous people of australia, creepy men in red jackets with sunglasses taking very suss photographs and ultimately being woken up by one of the very nice, very drunk irish lads asking where his room was = classic night out!
After spending hours walking around the town, chilling out in the glorious sun (the weather here is just wonderful) booking my tour, browsing through the markets and grabbing a bite to eat I wound up back at the hostel having more beers with the
english lads i met in Cusco. Chinese dinner and beers (can you see a pattern forming here?!) and by 12 I was in bed getting some very much needed but very little beauty sleep before my trek into the canyon. My other blog is dedicated to my awesome trip into the Colca Canyon and this is not far from being wound up.
If you're looking for a place to chill out come to Arequipa, the weather is beautiful, there are plenty of great restaurants to choose from and the people are lovely. There are hostels galore, ice cream shops and plenty of good beer, of course there's the canyon, rafting and day trips to hot springs if thats your thing. But i've had a wonderful time here and I simply don't want to leave.
Hmmm I haven't left yet. I've now been here for two days since coming back from the canyon trip and in that time I've had an even better time; doing a bit of this and a bit of that, basking in the sun, looking for good meal deals, enjoying a starbucks chocolate frappe, HELLO!! and having probably one of the best meals I've had in South
America thus far!!!
We met a really cool guy who reminds me very much of Carlos from Costa, who was more than happy to show us (that would be the dutch girls, dermott, erica and I) around....so yesterday we were lucky enough to be taken to one of the best sea food restaurants in town. I don't know the name of it and I can't tell you how to get there, its secret and only for locals, hence the dagger looks that were sent our way when Cuto walks in with 6 foreigners!! But wow. I've never been a huge fan of sea food sea food, fish yes, I love fish but other types from the sea I've always been a bit weary. I'd eaten some delcious ceviche in Costa but apart from that my experiences were little....que most amazing food ever! We allowed Cuto to order for us, he does after all come to this place once if not twice a week!! I over looked my order after seeing an amazing plate of food walk past and settled on the arroz con mariscos (rice with seafood) and it was indeed a good decision. We were greeted first with a
leche con something can't think of the name but its basically ceviche in a glass with milk and all of those lovely juices, add a squeeze of lime and your good to go! It was almost a meal in itself with little bits of crab and fish and octopus floating around; it was spicy goodness and it was only the start. We of course had beers for everyone,the perfect combination with sea food, i think so!! And before long our massive plates arrived. The other food on offer around the table was indeed the famous ceviche mixto, fried fish with rice and sweet potato and Cuto's special dish of well everything that we had mixed together!!
What I loved about today was the fact that probably no tourists have ever been to this place and I got to experience it, and for a mere 8 dollars, heck yes!! Locals know the local hang outs and I'm so glad I got the chance to hang out with CUto a very cool, rocker Peruvian who knows his music and his food. Salude to that!
Arequipa, a great week spent in and around a great city!!
Wow,here I was about to publish
this thing when I realised I almost missed writing about the incredible piece of architecture and history; the Santa Catalina Monastery. Wow. what a building. This incredible piece of history has withstood a number of earthquakes and still looks incredible. These particular nuns were actually quite wealthy and purchased their 'apartments' which had everything one would need inside; kitchen, bed, fireplace, bathroom. They even had enough money to have servants! However a nice as this place was I don't think I could have done it, 20 hours a day in solitary! Uh are you in prison?!! Check out the photos, very impressive.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0795s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb