This and that

Lisa here. Kate, I´m glad to hear you made it home in one piece and can´t wait to hear the rest of your adventures on your way home. I just hope they do not rise above the adventure we had getting you to the airport in Juliaca.

I´m not sure what I last emailed about and since every time you try to go from one page on a blog to another it literally takes about five minutes, please forgive me if I repeat myself.

We arrived in Arequipa mid-day yesterday and checked into our hostal, La Hostal de Mi Abuela. It is truly a spectacular place. It´s the first place we have had with a bathtub and I got to soak my weary feet. Hot water is abundant. There is a pool, pingpong table, and some other game things. It is really hard to explain the richness of the place, but I will try with this example. When we arrived it was the first time we were able to wear shorts and sleeveless tops. We went across the courtyard to have an al fresco lunch overlooking the pool with people sunning themselves in bikinis, parakeets chirping in cages sprinkled around the courtyard, ¨wild¨birds twittering about, feeling hot for once, and looking just past the pool to the snowcapped mountains. Arequipa feels like a richer modern city but with colonial buildings housing hostals, restaurants and shops. We got a recommendation to go to El Turko Restaurante, we went there and the food was great.

Today we headed out on a tour, The Colca Canyon tour, which includes various stops along the way. I believe Gary wrote about his impressions of Chivay so I won´t go into physical descriptions anymore. While Gary was posting to the blog, Ariel and I went out to the market to scout out things to buy. The town is a lot less touristy than others we´ve been in and were happy to be able to go and actually look at something and not be accosted by the owner about buying everything she has in her space. There were the typical young girls parading around town with their baby alpacas or llamas for us to photograph for 1 sole and lots of places to buy wonderful looking fresh fruits which we did not buy because we could not wash them properly.

After an hour of shopping around and Gary blogging, we headed up to the hot springs and went into the thermal baths. I really do wish I could connect my camera and download the picture that could not be described in a thousand words. Picture a descent sized rectangular pool being fed water from the thermal spring. Inside the pool were people floating, sitting, swimming and generally just enjoying the heat. Outside of the pool were people walking around with hats, gloves and heavy jackets. The in-the-pool crowd was very comfortable and I´m sure the out-of-the-pool crowd was too. There were lockers on opposite sides of the pool to put belongings in and cliffs and mountains as a backdrop. Then, the clincher was a woman in full traditional dress of the area making her way around the pool taking drink orders from people in the pool and then delivering them. Incan ingenuity? It´s not a thousand words, but you will just have to wait for the picture.

We´re off to dinner now. Till next time,
Lisa