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Published: January 26th 2007
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Firstly, a big thanks to Casey for the pictuers of Arequipa. Not sure why, but we failed to take any so we nicked his for this entry.
We arrived in Arequipa, the white city of Peru. It is very different to the previous places we have visited. It looks nearly organised and very clean. We settled down in the "Caminante Class" hostel right next to the monastery Santa Catalina and very close to the town centre. This hostel was the first we visited, but in our search we saw about 10 places or so, but returned to the first, always the way it goes eh! That day happened to be our 3 years aniversary so we treated ourselves to a big arequipenian dinner in a local "Tourist Restaurant". That night we ate local dishes of the area and were serenaded by panpipes and dancing. The guys where very good, and probably the best we have heard in Peru.
The weather in Arequipa is very convenient but also very dry, the "so hot" days turn to very chilly nights, allowing a good night sleep. The next morning greeted us with amazing views from the hostels terrace and the excited Andy
Arches of the Cathedral
Image Courtesy of Casey jumped up and down at the sight of snow covered mountains and the famous volcano "Misty". We both agreed that breakfast with that view is priceless and to further indulge our senses we booked ourselves onto a 3 day 2 night FULL TREK to the Colca Canyon. Yes, full trek means, walking, only walking - no convenient 4x4 carrying your butt and your backpack with the necessities for the next few days.
Read next blog entry for the full Colca Canyon experience. click me:
The Biggest Crack in the Earth (almost)
We returned from the trek, exhausted and full of aniticipation for a proper shower. As soon as we lay our heads down for a quick nap, we were off to meet our new french friends for a drink, Andy stayed in bed as he felt cold, with the shakes and generally ill. The same hit Josie about 12 hours later. Thankfully the shivers did not stay for long, what did stay was the unusually frequent runs to the toilet and belly cramps. Never has such explosive bottom action occured for either of us, we had finally made it as travelers, we had got an exotic stomach illness!!! Knowing that it is probably
Fruits in the Market
Marco, our spanish teacher took us here. A pretty colourfull place
Image Courtesy of Casey not such a good idea to travel with these symptoms we decided to do the planned spanish lessons in Arequipa instead of Cusco. Dave, our new Canadian buddy who soon turned out to suffer the same illness, showed us his spanish school, just a few blocks down from our hostal. Perfect location for somebody who must find a toilet about 30 seconds after the warning cramp.
So there you were thinking we are just lazying around. Nothing like it! 4 hours intensive 2:1 spanish a day for a whole week and our brains were challanged again. We noticed that we picked up quite a few words on the way but it was great to be able to put them into somewhat sensible sentences. For a week we nearly got into what you could call a "routine" - in the morning Josie would hunt for breakfast, including fresh buns from the bakery and freshly squeezed orange juice. We would enjoy the scenery on the roof top and revise some of the spanish we learned the previous day. Then we would maybe go for a coffee to the Zig Zag, a creperie just opposite the hostal and enjoy the warming sun
More of the market
Image Courtesy of Casey rays. Or, one day we went to the Museum to marvel at the inka mummy found high in the mountains around Arequipa. The exibition was also showing all the gifts burried with the young child who was sacrificed to the inka gods. It was a pretty rushed affair as our guide pushed us through, and we have to say the frozen mummy was a pretty macabre sight. It was shockingly well preserved and a real curiosity.
At lunchtime we would go to the spanish school to prepare for the lessons which started at 2:00 pm. After the lessons, we obviously would need a break and would share it with our new friends from the hostal.
As soon as the first ice was broken we discovered that our S***-Squad gained some new members. Luke from Canada was also helping us to make sure the toilet seets never got too cold. Spookily it seemed we had all suffered the same fate, and we suspected something to do with either Arequipa or the Hostal was to blame. After few days of no change, Kim, Luke´s wife, MADE him to go to the doctors. And there we were, potentially all diagnosed the
same kind of bug that I can´t remember the name of. Josie went to the docs too, just to make sure she had the same thing, especially because the doc prescribed antibiotics. And yes, it turned out that the good doc gave her the same prescription and the same advice. The good man was probably diagnosing about 95% of the tourists with the same illness. He could have had pre-printed subscriptions and diet requirements but that would maybe not justify the 100 Soles he asked for the visit. Nevermind! Andy dutifully went to the chemist and procured the prescripion, and they didn´t even bother to take it, so he reused it the next day to solve his own bottom issues.
Finally Casey, the irish Chocolatier (from Cork) joined our bunch, not the S-Squad though he seemed to have a stomach of iron, and you can imagine where the evenings went, the unevitable S-Squad toilet humour flourished, accompanied by Gato Negro (Wine, that was not supposed to be part of our diet according to the doc, sorry!). The docs choice of coktail was different though, Fruti Flex 50 - a horrible tasting drink, but full of minerals and vitamins that
The S-Squad
Not all members shown here had the bottom issue, but we didn´t want them to feel left out :) Note the Fruti Flex bottles! We think they glow in the dark! we were not keeping in with the food. We soon renamed it to the S-squad Slammer and were cheering to each other with the 1 liter jiggers. Nothing for begginers I tell you 😊
After the antibiotics started to kick in it was soon clear that our time in the Hotel California was near to an end. We had to move on and so we booked our tickets to Cusco and Casey was to join us. We arranged a last supper at "El Turko II" with our little family and finally said goodbye to everyone. Being able to share the pain has truly made it so much easier to bear and so much more fun that the ache was soon forgotten and only good memories of Arequipa remained.
The only thing that Arequipa kept to itself was it´s famous Condors. Everyone of you who has ever heard some panpipe music knows the memorable "El Condor pasa" melody. The song is about the Condors that frequently circle around Arequipa and surroundings but they didn´t "pasa" for us this time.
We really liked Arequipa due to its abundance of good food and best of all the new friends we
All the gang
Our final meal in El Turko II. Nice food shame about the name.
From left to right:
Andy,Josie,Johanna,Casey,Dave,Kim and Luke
Image Courtesy of Casey made there. It just shows that it isn´t what you see or the diseases you pick up on a trip that make it special, it is the people you share it with.
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