Arequipa

It is six in the evening and it has already been a very long day. We arrived this morning at nine after a long twelve hour bus ride. We had not booked a hostel before but we had written a couple down. New rule, write the name of the hostel and the address. This will save time and hassle. We found our hostel, La Postada del Virrey, after almost two hours of walking and asking directions. Luckily a friendly front desk attendant at a very nice hotel phoned the place for us. A lady met us at the hotel and walked us up streets that we had already been, just a little further up than we went of course!

From the moment we arrived we both have had an agreeable sense of this city. I like it much more than any of the other towns we have spent time in. The streets are clean, the taxis don't honk as much, the food and the lodging (if you look in the right place) are cheaper. It has a more homely feel to it, instead of a mall it has a market and the town square is beautiful.

We have booked a three-day hike through Colca Canyon. We start tomorrow morning at 3am and finish on December 29 at 5:30pm. Originally we booked the 2-day hike but for $10 more per person we get an extra night's lodging and 3 extra meals so we decided to go for it. We are still learning how to budget properly and how to balance time with money spent. Six months is a long time and though we have not been spending money frivolously we have been blowing through our budget. Unfortunately due to dollar prices fluctuating, the Christmas season, and learning how to travel it has been a challenge to understand how to do so on a shoestring. There are some things we would have done differently had we known and some things we are paying closer attention to for the future. It is a large learning curve but we are enjoying it.

We have to go make dinner now. Would you believe how difficult it is to find ingredients for tacos in this country? Oh irony.

The photos were taken while writing this. There is one of the setting sun in the city, one of our room (on the right), and one of the Volcano "Mismi" that towers over Arequipa.

I've got to go make dinner. Will post again after our trip to Colca Canyon as we will not have internet access there.

Erik