Even
though we arrived in Arequipa early in the morning we got a taxi directly to Amazing Home Hostel that had been
recommended to us. It wasn’t cheap at
Soles 70 for a private double room but it was just what we needed. A lovely clean room; plenty of space to sort
ourselves out, laundry facilities (vitally important after the trek and
jungle!), free wi-fi, tour information and a kitchen.
From
what we’d heard and speaking to others along our travels Arequipa sounded like
a good places to relax for a couple of days and we were expecting a small town.
On reading our Lonely Planet we discovered it’s actually Peru’s second largest
city so we lowered our expectations.
However on wandering around the main square and surrounding streets we
instantly liked the place as it doesn’t have the feel of a big city at all. The main square and centre are just as lovely
as many other places we’ve been to and after Cuzco it was great to get away
from the hordes of tourists. Not to
mention people trying to sell you something every 10 paces. All-in-all we found Arequipa a thoroughly
likeable place and the sort of town we could see ourselves living in.
We
really didn’t do much more than wander around the main part of town, explore
the market where we sampled some tasty fayre and do our marketing. It was lovely to be able to cook our own meal
that evening which we washed down with a bottle of local white wine. We keep saying we’re going to start being
healthy but there always seems to be something worth raising a glass to. Maybe we should start doing boring activities
and stop enjoying ourselves. Not a
chance!!
The
next morning we wandered over to the town’s mirador in the residential area
where we got good views looking over the city and towards the mountains. We had
contemplated walking up one of said hillocks as it would have been an easy way
to bag another 6000m peak. In the end we
decided it wasn’t worth the money and to stick to our claim of no more
mountains for us. Instead we’re going to
spend more time in the Cordillera Blanco trekking in amongst high peaks. In the meantime we had a canyon to go and
look at.