So yesterday I left off telling you all about the delicious street food and cheap fixed priced meals that are big enough to share. What I didn´t have enough time to mention was that at one of those delicious meals of chicken foot soup or deep fried mystery meat we both got a stomach bug. This wouldn´t be so bad except for the aformentioned toilet situation in our hostel and the fact that we had an 11 hour bus ride that evening with little or no facilities and certainly no water to flush or wash hands. Since we needed to be out of our hostel by 11am we spent a good part of the day sitting in the basement of another bus terminal that had pay toilets. Pretty awesome stuff I am sure you guys are jealous.
The reason we were not sitting in our own bus terminal is because the hole in wall place we bought our tickets didn´t have a terminal, there wasn´t even enough room for us, our bags and the six other people inside. Now we were warned about buying the cheapest tickets we could find for a variety of reasons. We didn´t care the tickets were cheap and we managed to purchase them using no english. Our bus was to leave at 6:30 but with no where to go we were sitting on the curb by 4:50pm eating more street food outside of the 'office' we bought our tickets from. I don´t know if we were just lucky or what but the bus going to Arequipa showed up at 5 loaded us and some other people on in the most haphazard way and left. We were upgraded along with anyone else that shoved forward into the sleeper section of the bus. The company only has a morning bus and an evening bus so to this day I am not quite sure what would have happened if we had shown up at 6:15 like we were supposed to. For the rest of the night the bus stopped at different crowded locations in the desert towns and let people off or on. At each stop people just held their tickets up outside of the bus in a crowd and yelled to the guy letting peole on. Whoever fit either in the stairwell or in a seat got on. Also, people selling things got on like candy, food, sodas, olive oil, and nuts. I bought a fresh bag of black olives with the pits still in them that were delicious.
We arrived in Arequipa while it was still dark at 4:30am. Driving into the city and out of the desert mountains was amazing. Arequipa is a massive spralling city whose bulidings are almost never over two or three stories. The city is spread out for miles and miles in every direction and lit mostly by street lamps. We sat in the bus terminal nursing our unhappy bellies with tea and bread and waited for it to be light outside before we decided to find the center of town.
Arequipa is a city surrounded by mountains and a volcano, and is by far the nicest city we have been too. There is still a serious lack of trash cans and vehicle emmission standards are lacking, plus we saw a guy throwing a bag of trash into an already polluted river but beyond all that people seem to have a better standard of living here. Also, since we have been in Arequipa we have not had any electricty blackouts like we had in Ica on our last day. No electricity in a desert city makes eating anywhere more questionable. Some woman in the town center had us come check out her hostel and it seemed nice enough and it was cheap so we stayed there for 5 days and cleaned our laundry bucket style.
We also met some great guys from Lima who taught us how to make delicious Pisco sours with egg whites, limes, sugar syrup and a blender. They were in this city filming the miner convention that was happening last week. On last saturday the 17th we found a new hostel closer to the plaza for the same price that has more people and a computer and free wifi. We have seen so many mummies, so many old textiles, pottery, and artifacts that I think we are all museumed out for a little while. We have been walking every where and visiting every market we can find.
The shop keepers have been wonderful and very helpful. One sweet little old man yesterday walked us around the block to the store that he knew had the cooking fuel we were looking for but did not know the name to. Come to think of it a couple of older little men have come over to Andy to say hi and shake his hand and ask him where he is from. This city has been great but it has been almost 11 days now and it is time for a change of scenery. I think we will both be relieved to get into the canyon, sleep in our tent and breath some fresh air. I still want to tell you all about the chifa restraunts that aren´t really chinese food, the wild dogs and so much more that that will have to wait for later! Our spanish is getting better little by little so don´t worry about us and our packs are much lighter after parting with so many nice things (like my hammock) so we will be able to defend ourselves from mountain lions and the such. We will write back in about two weeks. Much love!
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