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Steve and Emma's Travel Tales

Amazing Arequipa

PERU | Monday, 10 September 2012 | Views [478]

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.

 

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