Yanquis in Latin America: Arequipa

I am looking back now, at the end of two weeks of travel and recounting the events that transpired...

Day Five: Traveling overnight is ideal for many reasons, not least of which being that it saves on lodging costs and frees up more time to see new places. Thus, I engineered our trip in South America to have as many overnight travels as possible. Such was the case getting into Arequipa, known as the white city, in southern Perú. Arequipa is one of the largest cities in Perú and is, like Lima, surrounded by desert (the same Andean desert I live in, only with a touch more greenery.) It is known as the white city because it has retained a majority of its colonial structures which are built of white lava rock quarried from the nearby volcanoes.

We arrived early in the morning and were greeted by the owner of the hostel we had booked. He was even holding a little cardboard sign with my name on it. He was Italian, and when I asked him why he was in Perú he simply replied in Spanish, "because I am working at a hostel." He escorted us to the hostel in a taxi, free of charge, and then got us settled in. He was extremely accommodating our entire stay, and the hostel itself was very nice as well. We expressed interest in doing a day tour to Colca Canyon (which is one of the earth's deepest canyons) the next day, and he immediately set us up with a tour guide who took us into the town center and got us booked with his agency. The tour was to start at 3:30 the next morning and conclude that night around six and would eventually turn into the "tour that never ends." However, more on that later.

After booking the tour we found a pollo joint and enjoyed some excellent pollo y papas fritas along with salad and some kind of Peruvian soup. Everything in Perú was so much cheaper than in Chile, it boggled my mind. The US dollar really goes a long way down there. On the way back to the hostel, as we were walking down the street, I suddenly heard my name called out. I looked around in confusion until I spotted Alex waving frantically at me from a cab. We showed him to the hostel and our party became four. Later that evening we went back into the town center so that he could book the tour as well, and then we found a killer little kebab joint for supper, along with a Swedish bar that had nothing to do with Sweden and a fast food place called Johnny Coyote. We passed a coffee shop on the way back to the hostel where I spotted three fellow volunteers form Región Cinco: Corie, Alison, and Lauren. I hadn't seen them since orientation so we spent some time chatting and catching up. They told me that they were waiting on Heather to get there so they could all go together to Cuzco. After a while, we said our goodbyes since we all had to be up before the crack of dawn, and bid Arequipa an early buenos noches. We then retired for our four or so hours of quality rest.

Day Six: It seemed like I had barely closed my eyes before my phone began talking to me (my alarm is a woman speaking in Spanish that tells me its time to get up and then what time it is.) I roused the troops and we threw together our day packs, bundled up against the high altitude cold, and went down to meet the tour bus. The ride to the canyon was simply dreadful. The bus was packed and Chris, Alex, and I had no room to move or stretch out. To top things off, the three hour ride was over the windiest, bumpiest roads known to man. I had an extreme case of motion sickness nearly the entire day, and it is a minor miracle that I didn't vomit. We finally made it to the tiny town in the canyon known as Chivay just as the sun was rising. There we were fed a buffet breakfast of typical Peruvian food, to include plenty of coca leaves to make tea or chew to alleviate altitude sickness, as we were over 4000 meters most of the day. BT and Chris had some pills to take as well, but I was unaffected having been living at around 3000 meters the past few months.

JFM approves of this canyon.

Colca Canyon itself is an incredible spectacle, and even though we only saw a few small condors flying about, it was still worth the trip. However, as the day wore on and we had to keep climbing back into that awful bus and drive all over the awful winding roads, going from tiny town to tiny town (they have no electricity there) it began to seem as though the tour would never end. We eventually made it back to Chivay where we had a good lunch and then rested in the plaza while part of the group went to visit some hot springs (we weren't interested, as it was an additional cost.) In the plaza three little girls came up to Brandon and asked if he wanted to take their picture. After he did, one of the girls held out her hand and demanded money. We all laughed, and asked how much she wanted. "Dos soles." Brandon shook his head and gave her a fifty centavo piece (which isn't even worth 15 US cents). Alex offered to give them 2 soles if they would sing, but they declined the offer.

The bus finally arrived to pick us up, and we were off again on the way out of the Colca Valley and back to Arequipa. We stopped a few more times to look at llamas or some such, but I slept through that part. I've seen plenty of camelids in my time down here. I did make it a point to get out when we stopped at the highest altitude in the area, at round 4800 meters, because I needed to pee. I was quite breathless by the time I made it back to the van.

When we returned to the hostel we found Peter, the Slovakian, waiting for us. He had arrived that morning from Lima. The five us headed into town where we ran into a mess of other volunteers (Corie, Alison, and Lauren again, as well as Heather, Stacey, and Lisa.) Four of the girls were off to catch a bus to Cuzco, on their way to hike up to Macchu Pichu. Stacey and Lisa had no plans, and so we all went to eat together, ending up at the same kebab place as the night before (it was that good.) Lisa was on her way to Lima to fly home, having finished her four month stint. We all had early mornings again, so we kept the evening short and said our farewells to Lisa and Stacey. Peter was going to go hike in the canyon the next morning, and BT, Chris, and I had a 7:30 bus to Tacna to catch.