Last night we got to the bus station at 8pm for our 10pm bus. We had some chips nearby. The English here is very limited so it was hilarious trying to order a serve of chips for four people. We ended up with four ginormous bowls of chips!! Haha. Even with Courtney who speaks some Spanish we are struggling!!
The bus was very late, it didn't arrive until 11pm! By the time we were boarding I was pretty much falling asleep standing up. We got on the bus and I fell asleep just about instantly! The seats reclined quite a lot so I somehow managed to get 8 hours sleep and only woke once. My throat is zapping a lot of my energy at the moment I think.
This morning we arrived in Arequipa about 9.30am and went to our hotel. The city is the second largest in Peru after Lima. It is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes and has often been affected by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that have devastated the city over the years. For this reason the architecture varies from old buildings to modern buildings from periods of rebuilding.
We walked from our hotel to a cafe for lunch. Ash and I shared a meal which had chicken, corn, cheese, egg and cooked bananas. It was delicious! We also had a juice each that had strawberries, bananas and passion fruit. Hoping the vitamin C does its magic soon. Lunch took forever. The service is slow and it takes a long time with a group of 18 but the food was nice!
Then we all walked to a market where we bought some fruit. The architecture here is stunning, reminds me a lot of Spain (funny that since they invaded here in the 1500s!). We spent a bit of time looking in some shops and trying to speak broken Spanish in a pharmacy to get an antibacterial gargle for my throat but everyone just wants to give me antibiotics! So I bought a bag of salt at the supermarket which I'm going to gargle. All they had was a 1kg bag so I look like I'm smuggling drugs...oops! Hoping it works.
After the shops the four of us went to the Santa Catalina Monastery. The monastery opened in the 1500s and is 5 acres and has 80 rooms that nuns used to live in! We spent an hour or so walking around enjoying the pretty architecture and colours. The new monastery part had a lovely viewing point as well!
Then we went and sat in the main square (Plaza de Armas) and people watched. Courtney and Rachel went to buy some chocolate while Ash and I sat down. We quickly gained two friends who started talking to us and asked if they could sit with us. I was a bit sceptical and checked straight away that my bag was all locked up ok. After the Madrid incident I can never be too careful (having my phone stolen two years ago!). These two seemed ok though and just wanted to practice their English. We had about a 15 minute chat about our travel plans. These two had only ever been here and Chile and couldn't believe how well travelled we were. Both of them want to move to England or Australia. It's sad that my initial reaction is to put my guard up and worry people are trying to rip me off, but that's the way it is these days I guess.
The four of us and Jess and Hannah (who live a five minute walk from grandma and grandpa, Dad!) went to a rooftop restaurant and had a drink. The view was beautiful. You could see the cathedral (which David tells me lost it's original clock in 2001 after an earthquake) and the volcanoes (there are three) in the distance. We also watched the sunset which was stunning!
Customer service here is ridiculous. Our drinks came after about an hour. Our meals were nice but took forever. Guess it's just something I'll have to get used to! Frustrating for all involved though. I tried alpaca which I shared with Ash and it was delicious! The best part about dinner was the ponchos they gave us all because we were cold (see below photos!).
To be honest for some reason today has been the hardest so far in terms of homesickness. But I've just skyped mum and Brendon and am about to watch 'Glee' with Courtney which will help :) I uh ink it's just that this throat infection is zapping all my energy and I'm worried about it. Salt gargling has begun and hopefully that'll work!!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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