Mummy Juanita and the Condors...not a band, unfortunately.

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08/21/12

Not much sleep on the overnight bus to Arequipa...too many twists and turns, and little on the chilly side. However, arriving in Arequipa was well worth the ride. It was very picturesque: snow capped mountains, rivers, cobble stoned streets, and baroque style architecture. By now, I'm starting to feel the altitude. It was a bit strenuous to breathe normally and I was getting mild headaches.

When we arrived at the hostel, all we wanted to do more than anything was to take a hot shower, but our room wasn't ready and we ended up waiting several hours. In the meantime, we were too exhausted to do anything, so we just hung out in the lobby and used the internets. I Skyped with my nephews and nieces, and Megan probably just looked at fashion magazines and soft-core porn on her phone. In the afternoon, we walked to plaza de armas and there happened to be a parade. So, we did what most people would do in our situation...we watched. We didn't have much trouble finding vegetarian restaurants, and in general, just finding good food we could actually eat! Probably because we arrived on a Sunday, we assumed that Arequipa would be substantially slower paced then Lima, but we came to find out the next morning that it wasn't so much the case...at least, with driving and traffic. Back to playing frogger, white people style.

We visited the museum with the Ice Princess and that was pretty amazing to see, especially from an anthropological standpoint. From the actual mummy to the story and history behind it. I highly recommend it.

08/22/12

We took a day trip to Colca Canyon, which was tiring, but an awesome experience. We were picked up at our hostel at 3am. After picking everybody else up from their respective places of slumber, getting gas, paying tolls, and making other various stops for beef jerky and Gatorade, it became quite a long journey to get to the top of the mountain. Overall, the driving on a scale of 1 to sketchy, was super sketchy, hilarious, I know. Also, poor Megan had to sit next to a crazy lady the entire trip...I can't remember what she was doing, buuut it was craaazzy. When we arrived, it was freeezzing! Especially for us warm butted Californians. At the top, it was pretty awe-inspiring to see the condors fly, or float rather, in the canyon. The only downside was all the tourists tripping over themselves to constantly take photos and not even enjoy what it is they're seeing. It was, however, at least entertaining when I had to take a number 2 in the only restroom there. Let's just say that it was very loud and about 50 people waiting outside, heard it's fury being echoed against the canyon's walls. Even more amazing, according to my girlfriend, was that nobody even flinched. I guess I'm the only immature one... When we returned, we were starving so we headed straight to a restaurant we had eaten at a day prior and, of course, it was closed. It seems that people like to make their own hours in Peru.

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