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Published: June 24th 2006
The next leg of our journey began with a CIAL nightbus from Nazca to Arequipa. Despite the excitement of a Mercedes sleeper coach, it was virtually impossible to sleep due to the potholed hairpin roads and the slippery leather seats.
As the sun rose on what was my birthday, we were sadly awoken to Jose Feliciano´s greatest love ballards and a sweaty ham sandwich! The Landscape outside however was fascinating with huge boulder strewn mountains bathed in the intense morning sunlight.
As I peered outside, I couldn´t help but wonder if these type of rock formations were what gave inspiration for the huge geometrically separated construction techniques widely used by the ancient Andean civilations.
On arrival in Arequipa and in the shadow of the three majestic volcanoes "Chachani", "Pichu Pichu" and the idelllic "El Misti", we immediately noticed a shortness of breath due to the city´s 2380 meter altitude.
With a free day to relax and enjoy Peru´s second largest city we walked around Arequipa´s beautiful sun bathed cobbled streets and took time to snoop around markets and grab a bite to eat at a fantastic rooftop restaurant overlooking Santa Catalina church.
Arequipa is known as
the "White City" for two very different reasons. From an aesthetic point of view, many of its important buildings are made from Sillar (seeya), the volcanic material spewed out in abundance during Chachani´s last eruption 1000 years ago. Nowadays, Chachani is dead and El Misti is the only live volcano of the three. The other reason for the city´s name being that the city´s population used to be very predominatly white.
There are some city´s that you can immediately warm to and Arequipa is certainly one of them. The streets are crammed with tiny yellow Daewoo taxis which hussle their way around sporting customised horns and spoiler decorations. The streets are cobbled and clean and there is an air of safety unlike Lima.
Having returned to our hotel, we decided to trot back to the rooftop restaurant to watch the sun go down over the city and it´s spectacular volcanoes. Over a Pisco Sour, Peru´s most famous tipple made from Pisco, Lime and egg whites, we watched the light in the night sky be replaced by the floodlights over the central plaza and Santa Catalina church.
For the evening we went a lovely restaurant where our tour
leader Patty had decorated the table with streamers and hanging from the rafters was a giant paper "piñata" of a bottle of Arequipena beer which I was to bash with with a giant plastic spiderman wand after dinner! The meal was lovely and it gave me my first opportunity to eat Coy. (Guinea Pig to those at home, seasoned and grilled in a spread eagled fashion across my plate!) To my delight the Coy was gorgeous although lacking on much meat and Claire too thoroughly enjoyed her Ostrich steak!
After the meal, the typical but rather better than normal Peruvian band, panpiped and harmonised their way through a brilliant rendition of Happy Birthday whilst a massive Chocolate cake was brought to the table. I found it highly amusing when they got to the penultimate line and sang in their Spanish accents "heppy berthday dear Hevin!"
Donning my blindfold I then knock several bails of poop out of the Piñata, launching it across the room and smashing a wine glass. Still intact, I punched the contents onto the floor to find that rather than the usual contents of sweeties, mine was full of plastic genetalia!
We then all
trekked off to a local club, dressed in silly hats and danced our little socks off to all sorts of familiar music including Fat boy slim and Blur which was a pleasant surprise. The giant plastic Superman was a hit on the dancefloor until it was time to return to the hotel to drink neat Pisco and hit the sack.
A fine birthday in a fine city... tomorrow... Colca Canyon, home of the largest bird of flight in the world. The Condor.
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