Cusco to Arequipa

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Today was mostly a travel day. The sun was up early as usual so we actually were up and going by 6:30 or 7:00. We spent the morning packing and checking stuff for our flight to Arequipa. There was a bit of confusion as somehow I got bumped off out 2:20 flight to the 3:35 flight with no warning. I had to call customer service to try to figure out what was going on and even after that I couldn't complete my check-in online. So I was a bit worried. Then, we realized that Kelsey, even though she had checked in the day before for the 2:20 flight, had also been switched to the 3:35 flight. Neither of us had any notice from LAN, which was a little disconcerting and we were a bit nervous about heading to the airport.

We had to check out of the hotel at 10 so we spent the next 2 hours wandering and shopping (I'm cut off from buying any more though!). We were meeting Persis and Allan at 12 for lunch before heading to the airport.

Lunch was nice. We went back to ChiCha, the restaurant we ate at our first day in Cusco. Persis and Allan filled us in on their time in Aguas Calientes and also told us about Arequipa and the Colca Canyon since they had been there before coming to Cusco.

Around 1:00, it was off to the airport! Luckily, there was no more drama with our flight and we got off ok. The flight had a brief stopover in Juliaca and overall went very quickly. We landed in Arequipa - the smallest airport in the world I swear - around 5:30 or so. A rep from the hotel was waiting for us and we got to the hotel (Casa Andina Classic on Jersualen St) with just enough time to change and freshen up before dinner with Liz - a friend of some friends of Kelsey's parents. Liz met us at the hotel at 6:30 together with her uncle who doesn't speak any English. They took us to a restaurant called Carlitos in a complex called Montenero. Dinner was ok - I got beef ribs, my third straight ribs meal following lamb ribs on Friday night and pork ribs for lunch on Saturday. The conversation was up and down due to some of the language differential, but Liz's uncle was a riot nonetheless. We bonded over the fact that he and I were drinking our Pisco Sours much faster than Kelsey and Liz.

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