Arequipa

Greetings from Arequipa! It´s bright and early Saturday morning. The bus arrived from Cuzco at about 6:30 a.m. The bus left at 9 p.m. There was a movie that I didn´t watch. Instead I spent about an hour or so talking to the nice lady next to me. She lives outside of Cuzco but her youngest son lives in Arequipa so she and the other family members are surprising him on his birthday by showing up early prepared to cook a big meal and have a big party. Hopefully, he doesn´t have a houseguest there. Her luggage consisted of boxes of food ingredients prepared to make a special meal.

I fell asleep and the first time I woke up was about 4 a.m. I slept like a log! What a great bus ride! Having fully reclining seats and a nice new bus makes a big difference!

Going from 10,000 feet to 7,000 feet makes a big difference. Cuzco is a little bit like Lake Tahoe: lots of green vegetation. Arequipa, on the other hand, is like the American southwest. It lies in a valley surrounded by high mountains. There are cactus and palm trees here. The outside of town looks pretty bleak, like high desert. I am sitting on the roof top terrace of the hostal eating breakfast at 7:30 a.m. The sky is bright blue from horizon to horizon and the sun is already hot and bright even though it´s barely above the mountain tops. What a difference from Cuzco! It´s WARM here!

Walking around town today was a complete joy, again, very much unlike Cuzco. People did not come up and hound me for hand-outs, or to buy underwear. How refreshing!This is an actual town, not a tourist trap.

bye for now!