Arica to Arequipa

From the international bus terminal in Arica, we got into a "colectivo".  Colectivos are txis that fill up with people to go across the border into Peru.  Enough of them were around with people saying "Tacna?  Tacna?" so we were able to get in the taxi of a woman in her 50s right away.

She took us with 3 Chileans over to another area of the parking lot and disappeared with our passports.  We would have been alarmed, but we read about how this all works and we knew she'd be back.  Sure enough 10 minutes later she was back with our passports and a printed immigration form.

We made the drive through the Chilean border, and then onto the Peruvian one.  It went pretty smoothly and she dropped us and the other 3 at the Tacna bus station.

From there we got a cab to the airport and waited for our flight to Arequipa.  We split a mediocre empanada from the airport cafe while we waited.

Around 4pm we arrived in Arequipa and taxi'd to our hostel "Amazing Home."  Our original hostel had emailed us a day before cancelling, so we hurried up and booked this one.  Its in a n old building, but the room is spacious and the shower hot, so we were satisfied.

We were starving since we'd barely eaten all day.  We stopped in the first juice shop we saw and ordered 2 mango juices.  The guy had us take a seat and ran out the door.  He returned a few minutes later with a bag of mangoes, and shortly after that we enjoyed some of the best juice ever.

The juice gave us enough energy to wander a while and find somewhere to eat for dinner.  We ended up eating at "Istanbul." We ordered pita sandwiches, kafta for me and falafel for Ryan.  We walked a little more after that, got some ice cream, can back and hit the sheets.

This morning we woke up early and Ryan did some exercises in the room.  We had banana pancakes in the breakfast area, which we were pretty good.  We walked to Starbucks for coffee afterwards.  I didn't even feel guilty for getting Starbucks in South America...I needed coffee that wasn't instant.

We sat on a bench in the Plaza de Armas for a while and watched the pigeons fly around the fountain.  We stopped back at the hostel to drop off our coats because it was getting warm, and then headed to tour a 16th century monastery.

The Santa Catalina Monastery was really pretty and really large.  The walls were painted bright blues and oranges, and it was interesting to see the old cells and chapels throughout the property.  We walked around for about an hour before heading off to find some lunch.

We got to the restaurant just as they were opening and the owner asked us to give him 15 minutes.  What else to do but get more juice from our favorite spot?  We sucked down 2 mango juices and headed back to the restaurant for lunch.

Lunch was a bed of sliced potatoes with vegetable and beef topping.  It was delicious and really hit the spot.  It was a mix of sweet potatoes and regular, but each had purple skin.

We wandered a bit more before heading back to the Plaza to meet Joe.  Joe (remember Joe, Ryan's dental school buddy, with us for a while in Panama?) is also in Arequipa for a but before heading to Cuzco to do some volunteer dentistry for a few weeks.

We met with him and went to see a museum about a frozen 500 year old body of a child that was sacrificed to the god's by the Incan people.  The tour consisted of an introductory movie about the archeological expedition to the top of various mountains to uncover these bodies.

A guide took us around to see all the artifacts and at the end we saw the frozen body through a glass freezer.  Pretty weird stuff.

Afterwards we went to a cafe and had some tea and churros until it was time for dinner.

We ate at Mixtos, a restaurant not far from our hostel.  I had a stuffed pepper with potato, and Ryan had a mashed potato tower with shrimp (similar to a dish in our south american cookbook!) Lots of potato today!  Joe had a burger that looked really good.

We said goodbye and he headed off to the bus station for his bus to Cuzco, and we headed in to get ready for tomorrow mornings journey to Sacred Valley.  Goodnight!

(Pictures still to come...)