Mintie´s Revenge!!

Ok guys, still no photos. I´ll see if I can find anywhere in Cusco, but otherwise it might have to wait until we get back to Santiago. Here´s a recount of our last week in Arequipa though...

We arrived in Arequipa last Friday (24th Oct) tired from all the travel and ready to stay in one spot for a little while. We grabbed a taxi to the Plaza de Armas in the centre of the city. The Plaza has beautiful gardens and is bordered along one side by a magnificent looking Cathedral and on the others by Spanish style buildings and countless cafes on the balconies of each. Behind the Cathedral you can just see El Misti a perfectly formed (and still active) volcano which overlooks Arequipa and to its left the taller, but more disjointed looking Chachani volcano.

El Misti

Chachani

We checked into a hostel just half a block from the plaza and set about organising a Spanish course for the next week. We had decided that we need to brush up and become a little immersed in the language if we´re going to become proficient at speaking it. As we left the internet cafe we were in we were greeted by the Cathedral all lit up in the evening. We decided to pop inside and have a look around where a young school band were just setting up for a concert.

The Plaza de Armas in Arequipa and La Catedral

In the evening we headed off to a few bars to sample the local pisco sour and also a ¨diablo roho¨ (red devil). OMG! That was one of the harshest cocktails either of us have ever had... definitely cannot have more than one. Then as we were about to leave the bar a local cover band started up playing mix of older english funk and latin funk! was fantastic!!

Sippin on a pisco sour!

Diablo Roho!! Beware!!!

Saturday was a day to relax and then Sunday we headed up the Chachani volcano early in the morning with our Peruvian guide Roy so that we could mountain bike back down. We drove up to a point 4800m high and rode back down into Arequipa at about 2400m. What a day! We had amazing views of El Misti and Arequipa all of the way. I won the ¨biggest stack¨award when I momentarily forgot that they have the back and front brakes the opposite way around to us, so grabbed the front brake at speed and toppled over the handlebars... luckily it was a relatively soft landing with just some skinned knees to show for it. Sara held her own brilliantly (despite the screaming and laughing) until we reached a second ¨shortcut¨ section which was fairly deep soft sand. Ifg you didn´t do it at speed, you didn´t do it. Sara managed 6 tumbles in that one section to take the prize for quantity of falls. Luckily soft sand means a (relatively) soft landing. I don´t think either of us had been so exhausted, so covered in dust, so sore or so proud of ourselves by the time we made it back into town! What an adventure!!

Mountain biking Chachani

The start of the week saw the beginning of our Spanish lessons. We had lessons in the morning and then 1 hr in the afternoon as we were planning to begin a 3 day trek of the Colca Canyon on the Friday and so were making up these lessons in the afternoons. Afterwards we´d go see some Arequipeno sight/s then it was home with some Peruvian beer/rum and Spanish study, then wake up and repeat.

Monday we went to see Juanita (the ice princess), the body of a young incan girl sacrificed to the mountain gods and frozen under the snow at the top of the volcano for hundreds of years until she was discovered in 1995 when a nearby volcano errupted and melted the snow. They have now found several other children in similar graves with associated artifacts etc, all well preserved by the ice... was very interesting.

Tuesday we went to ¨El Monesterio de Santa Catalina¨. It is a HUGE monestary that takes up a whole city block near the centre of town and is like a fortress trapped in time. It´s set up like a city inside a city with streets and everything. The majority of it is made of sillar, a volcanic rock, painted bright orange, blue or white. There are fantastic gardens everywhere and amazing little hidden rooms here, there and everywhere. Was great fun to explore and we reached the roof just as the sun set, with an amazing view of the nearby mountains.

El Monasterio de Santa Catalina and views from...

Wednesday we headed to a restaurant that serves local specialties and tried the rocotto Relleno (peppers stuffed with meat) and roasted cuy (guinea pig). Now to understand the title of this post, you need to know that my sister and I had a guinea pig as a pet when we were young... named Mintie. For it was on the way home from the restaurant that I fell quite ill. In truth I think it may have been the luke warm empanadas from the day before, but who knows...

Thursday and Friday and today have all consisted of recovery for me and not a lot else. We had to delay our trek to the Colca Canyon until tomorrow, but we´ve also done a bit more exploring Arequipa. Today we walked to Yanahuara which is a nice suburb with a plaza that overlooks the rest of the city... very nice.

that´s about all I´ve got for now. Take care all and I´ll probably write again from Cusco!