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Becca, Zoe and Katy's Peruvian Adventure
Hello!
After our trip to Bolivia, we decided on the return journey to visit a city in Peru called Arequipa. This is in the South of Peru, and we had heard that it was meant to be beautiful with plenty to see, and with hot weather! How could we not go!!
After the long bus journey we arrived in Arequipa at about 6.30 in the evening, and the first thing we did was jump in the first taxi we could find. This turned out to be the best thing that we could do, as the driver was absolutuely lovely!! We all quite wanted to take him home with us! He was informative about the city, and recommended a good hostel that we could stay in. However, as our Spanish is not completely fluent (yet!), we misunderstood what he was saying, and thought he was trying to overchrge us for the taxi. He immediately had 5 girls shouting at him in no uncertain terms that we would not pay him the price he was mentioning! However, what he was in fact saying was that the hostel he was recommending was cheap, and was just quoting us the price!! After a lot of apologising, he took us to the hostel, and then offered to wait outside so that we could have a look at it and make up our minds, and that if we didn't like it, then he would take us somewhere else!! Bless him!! However, the hostel was cheap, clean and the people seemed friendly, so we took our bags up the stairs and settled in!!
After we'd unpacked slightly, we all decided that we were starving, and so we headed into town to a restaurant recommended to us by the owner of the hostel. When we arrived we found that it was entirely vegetarian, and quite into health food, with leaflets on the tables about the health benefits of probiotic yoghurt!! However, the service was rubbish, and everyone had finished their meals before mine and Zoes had even been brought out! The Peruvian people haven't quite worked out how to bring meals out together!! The food was good though, and afterwards we briefly explored the main square before heading back to the hostel for a good nights sleep. It was the first lie in that we had all had in ages, and all of us bar Katy slept in till about 11am!! In the meantime though, she did manage to read an entire book!!! Very impressive!!
After getting ready we all headed out to the main square again, where we met Helen, one of our housemates from Cusco, who was travelling independently of us. It was lovely catching up with her again, and we all went for lunch together. The restaurant served the best scampi that I have ever had, and we ate on the balcony overlooking the plaza. We spent a couple of hours up there chatting and enjoying the sun, before heading off to the famous monastery (Santo Catalina) in the city.
Upon entering the monastery, you could hear the nuns singing in one of the chapels, and it was like something out of The Sound of Music (very exciting to those of us who love the film!!!!) The monastery was absolutley beautiful. It was like a small town in itself, with narrow cobbled streets, archways, and orange trees and flowering plants everywhere. The atmosphere was one of peace and tranquility and I think that we all felt it. I was almost convinced to convert, and just stay there forever. The way it was described, made it sound like quite a comfortable life!! We were told all about one of the nuns who used to live there, who is in the process of being made into a saint as she performed miracles like curing cancer. The history behind the monastery was fascinating, and it was lovely to know that there are still 25 nuns living there now. They make soaps and creams and bake to support their income, and the whole thing was very idyllic. The views from the monastery were also amazing, with the snow capped volcano in the background. It couldn't have been any more perfect. We had a lovely guide who took our photos for us, and was very informative, telling us in great detail about the lives of the nuns and the history of the monastery, which has been around since the 1600s, although parts tend to fall down in earthquakes, so there is a great variation in style in the buildings.
After the monastery, I had to be dragged out, we headed to see Juanita the mummy!! This was definitely the part that Katy was looking forward to the most, recounting us with information that she could remember from the mummy book that she used to own as a child!! We had a tour from a lovely guide called Elmo (!!) he was full of fascinating facts about the mummies that were found on the volcanoes surrounding Arequipa (I forgot to say that Arequipa is surrounded by 3 volcanoes, the last eruption being in 2001!!). He told us in detail how the mummies were found be chance, but Juanita is the only one in perfect condition as she was preserved by the ice, and the others were struck by lightning! He also showed us all the artifacts in the museum, and explained exactly what they were, and where each was found. The textiles that the mummies were found in were unbelieveable, as they looked brand new, and could have been brough from a shop that day. The colours were amazingly vibrant, and they were not damaged at all. The power of ice!! Finally, after walking through lots of exhibits we were taken to see Juanita. She was amazing, although it was quite sad. She was in a cabinet, with the temperature of -20 to keep her preserved. she looked amazing, and it was fascinating to still see her hair (Zoe was particulalrly impressed by this!) and skin and teeth, and just see how well preserved she was. The story behind her made us quite sad though. She was 13 or 14 when she was sacrificed to the Gods, and Katy and I felt that if I were her, I would rather have been left where I had been found. If the Inkas were around today, I'm sure they wouldn't be impressed with us digging up their sacrifices! To be a sacrifice you had to be beautiful and pure and innocent, so we were obviously quite relieved that the Inkas aren't around now, as we would all surely be sacrificed!!!! After the tour, we watched a short National Geographic video about her discovery, which was also really interesting.
By the time the tour had finished it was gone 7pm, and time to meet Helen in a bar nearby. So off we trooped, and to our delight we discovered it was Happy Hour. Now I won't go in to details, but suffice to say, that Zoe and I made the most of it!!! We stayed in this bar for a while, and then our stomachs told us that it was dinner time, so we went to a nearby restaurant which also sold cocktails. Now, me and katy being the sensible ones picked sensible drinks, but oh no, not Zoe!! The strongest on the menu, and then she polished off Louise's!!! By the end of the meal she was decidedly happy, and adamanent that she wanted to carry on the night. To keep her company, Katy and I (both relatively sober!), went with her back to the original bar where we all had one more drink. That was all that was needed!! Katy and I then TOOK Zoe back to the hostel, where she proceeded to wake up one of our sleeping friends and rattle around the room for quite a while! Needless to say that in the morning she was feeling slightly worse for wear!!
Having done all the sites the previous day, we spent this day just exploring the shops (!!), sitting in lots of cafes and trying to top our tans in the heat! We had an amazing evening meal in a roof top restaurant where Zoe and I had a seafood meal for 2, and discovered the rather slimy but pleasant flavour of sea urchin!! We then had a rather massive rush back to the hostel where we had to pack up our belongings, and get to the bus station. Now, no-one told us that the bus station had 2 terminals, and we didn't discover this fact until we were in the wrong terminal with 10 minutes before our bus was due to leave. We all ran to the opposite terminal, where we then had to faff around with checking in our luggage, declaring that we had no alcohol on us (Zoe had to think hard about that one, as she couldn't remember if she'd stashed some away somewhere!!), and then board the bus with about 1 minute to spare!
This was the last night bus of the trip, and probably of our holiday here in Peru, and again Valium made the whole thing pass quite pleasantly, even if Zoe did have traumas getting into her sleeping bag, and a Peruvian man sitting near by, who was laughing quite a lot at her antics, had to help her!!! Typical Zoe!!
We arrived back in Cusco at about 5.30 in the morning, and all we wanted to do was go to sleep, so imagine our annoyance, when we got back and discovered someone sleeping in Zoes bed! That didn't last long, and she was soon sent on her way!!
This, I think concludes our week and a half away from Cusco, and what an amazing time it was. There is just too much too write about, although you wouldn't guess that, from the amount Zoe wrote on the last entry!!!
Anyway, we'll all be back soon to thrill you with more tales of our adventures!
Lots of love from us all
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