Lima – We
only allocated one day to Lima and to be honest, that was plenty. We could’ve
spent another day checking out the more upmarket shopping area of Miraflores
but it didn’t interest us. We spent our day wondering around the old town and
checking out the interesting old architecture in amongst dirty plain buildings.
We did a tour of a monks previous Monastery and church, as well as the
catacombs underneath it. It was nowhere near as cool as the ones in Paris but
it’s still mind blowing to see a 10 metre deep hole filled with bones belonging
to dead people from hundreds of years ago. It’s hard to imagine they all
belonged to actual people who lived, breathed, felt, loved….
Went out for
a cheap lunch and Andrews soup had chicken feet in it…. YUCK.
Unfortunately
we didn’t do anything fancy for our one year anniversary as we have to watch
every dollar… No fancy hotel… Our room in Lima was full with dust so I spent
two nights constantly sneezing and not being able to breathe. Fun Fun. We did however;
decide to treat ourselves to a first class overnight bus service to Arequipa.
The chairs were like lazy boys, very big and comfy, but they didn’t lay all the
way back as a full “cama” as I had thought.
Obviously there is no such thing is a real full cama… The chair in front
of mine seemed to go back further than everyone else’s, so much so it was lying
on my knees and it was very uncomfortable. They turned the air conditioning off
throughout the night so it was hot and sticky. At least there were no chickens
and no random people getting on every half an hour trying to sell us stuff.… it
was pretty fancy for South America, we even had a safety talk like we were on
an airplane and we were served a small basic dinner and breakfast the same as
airplane food.
17 hours
later we arrived in Arequipa. We explored the city streets and enjoyed the
Plaza Del Armas Square where all the buildings were made from volcanic white
rock in grand designs. In the misty distance, rocky desert surrounds the small
city as well as a prominent active volcano which dominated the distant skyline.
The streets are bumper to bumper with impatient taxis and the square is full
with pigeons. We booked a 2 day tour to Colca Canyon which is more than twice
as deep as the Grand Canyon; and then went out to lunch on a roof top terrace
in the sun.
Hours later,
a spanner was thrown in the works…..
Andrew
became very ill and spent most of the night in the bathroom suffering from food
poisoning. By the time his sickness had attacked, it was too late to cancel the
tour so the next morning we were dubbed no shows and lost $140 US…. I felt very helpless watching him suffer… my
sickness in Ecuador prior pales in comparison. He spent the entire day in bed
and in between nursing him, to keep myself entertained, I worked on my Spanish project
that I have created for myself.
At the
hostel, I met a young outgoing German girl who is travelling South America by
herself and sleeping on local’s couches! At only 19, I am staggered by her
braveness and her outlook on life. It is very inspiring. She doesn’t want to
come to this part of the world and live in a western world bubble by spending
it with only English speaking people, she wants to really experience the
culture and to speak the language. I find that in this later in life for me, I don’t
think I could be so carefree. The older I get, the more I worry about
EVERYTHING so I am tending to stick to minor comforts.... However I really wish
I could speak Spanish well enough that I could communicate with the locals
more; and I would love to stay with host families… maybe one day!!
Today Andrew
is doing much better, he is still very drained and exhausted but he has made it
out of bed. Not exactly how we had expected to spend his 31st
Birthday!
We have
rebooked our tour for tomorrow and luckily only had to pay another 70 soles (around
$30US).
I had booked
4 hours a day for 4 days intensive Spanish course in Cuzco but due to the delay
I am cutting it down to 3 days. Hopefully I can push my lessons up to 5 hours a
day to make the most of it but it will be very full on. Back to school!!!!
