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Published: September 15th 2011
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8/04
10 hour bus trip from Cuzco to Arequipa. It took us through some staggeringly beautiful Andes country, and it was far from boring. The leg room on the bus was less than beautiful though, and the little girl in the seat across from me staring at me and talking to herself constantly for much of the day was a little disconcerting. Still we arrived in one piece, and this time managed to drive the whole way – on our last trip to Arequipa we had been stopped some distance from our ultimate destination by a protest and been forced to walk almost 15 km.
From the bus station we grabbed a cab, and I continued my survey of cab drivers – this one was excellent. He told me that all of Arequipa was behind Ollanta, cien por ciento. The newspapers and the television were liars, all of them, when they said that the polling showed equal support across the board, and who could vote for the other fascists and particularly the daughter of the thief?
He was quite animated.
The owner at the hostel we chose asked if I could speak Spanish and seemed quite happy when I
said I could. He proceeded to discuss the election with us. He was quite surprised to find out that Australia also had compulsory voting, but that's as far as his interest went - he was one of those who simply wait for their turn to speak. He was more keen to explain his position. I politely enquired about the prospects of the various candidates – he was non committal about most of them, but expressed a clear preference for Alejandro Toledo, who, in all honesty, looked like a Mexican soap star; all blow dried hair and white teeth and nothing but front.
I enquired about Ollanta.
A look of disgust flickered across his face. “Him?,” he almost spat, “You know Hugo Chavez? The dictator? Ollanta is the same...” He started to lose me at that point, as he launched into an ill-informed rant about the evils of electing leaders who dared to place the interests of people over the interests of money.
“Morales in Bolivia,” he continued, “Chavez in Venezuela, Ortega in Nicaragua – all dictators.” Yeah, all elected in democratic elections and all somewhat left of centre – I could see where this was going.
Thankfully, at
this point the power went out. But only in the hostel. Something of a sign perhaps. It was to happen a couple more times, requiring him to run about trying to sort it out. It transpired that water had leaked down from the roof into the wiring. Eventually he managed to get it sorted, and when finally it happened one last time only one room was affected – this was, of course, our room. Another sign, perhaps.
Not a big deal really – it had been a long day and the lack of power wasn't going to keep us from sleep. Not even the gathering of young folk and their cars in the little plaza outside our window could keep us awake for long. It was just like home, even if they were all dressed in Medieval costume and appeared to carrying lutes. I didn't ask why, and I really should have.
The following day dawned beautifully, the air cold, refreshing, like a crisp Brisbane autumn day - only with a giant volcano looming over town and streets lined with beautiful buildings almost completely untouched by modern architectural mistakes. No, these mistakes were far from modern. According to
the weather there was to be an 80% chance of rain – the bright blue skies indicated that the 20% was in ascendence.
We were staying in an area with a lot of narrow pedestrian streets, mainly residential, and the white stone, sillar, which gave the city its moniker of “The White City” was very much in evidence.
There was quite a lot to see in Arequipa, and we began with a walk around the Santa Catalina Monastery. For a fee you can go for a walk around the compound, truly a town within a town. Very well maintained and presented, the nuns now live in more modern quarters, and most still have no contact with the outside world.
At some point they had clearly had contact because the same primary colour paint as the previous towns was very much in use. It was all in all very interesting, and photogenic. Although after the visit I was still very confused about what exactly it was the nuns did in there all day – possibly they just cooked stuff in huge kitchens.
While we were there it was election day and we got to experience, or endure, the
regulation that prohibited any alcohol sales for 24 hrs before the ballot. We did have hopes that we, as tourists, might be able to get around it, but it wasn't to be. We ended up having quite the healthy day in retrospect – at the time we were like desperate winos, wandering the streets of Arequipa looking for a drink, smiling grimly in shared misery at the many other groups of travellers doing much the same.
While they didn't have alcohol they did have some excellent markets – heaps of fish, meat and an entire section just for olives. I forgave them, just a little bit, for their local ordnance. We endured, ate our olives, and watched Ferris Bueller dubbed; a crime against humanity (the wiggles dubbed; that was just plain weird).
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slowfeet
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thanks for the reminders.