Day 9 (pm) - Return to Arequipa from Colca
We arrived back in Arequipa late afternoon on Tuesday and were a bit beat from the early morning condor viewings (and of course the latina teen fan club photo shoot). But I still had energy and interest in seeing one thing: Juanita!Juanita is the mummy of an incan girl who was sacrificed to the incan gods as part of an incan ritual in the 1400's on a mountain near Arequipa. Due to the cold weather, remarkably, Juanita remained hidden and preserved until 1995 when, due to volanic ash melting the ice on the mountain, 'Juanita' was found and transported to Arequipa to be studied, and ultimately displayed in the museum. We went to this museum in Arequipa to hear the story and see the preserved mummy. It was amazing to see her (photo is not mine, it's from Google) as well as all the other artefacts, and learn more about the Incans (who seem a bit loco if you ask me). She is preserved in a temperature-controlled glass 'freezer' in the museum. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far!
Day 10 & 11 - Arequipa to Lima
Well we still had one day more to explore the beautiful city of Arequipa. Our day started off with a nice breakfast on the roof of our fav hotel. Again, sunny warm day made for great tanning weather.
From there, we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Monastery (e.g. nunnery). The monastery is a city within a city so we spent a bit of time walking around and exploring where the nuns used to live (not exactly the Hilton I tell ya). Here is a cute picture of Ariel posing with the replica of the last supper...
The grounds were actually quite nice (the nun's rooms were dark and tiny) so we spent most of the time walking around outside.
The Monastery also had an impressive art gallery. I quite liked these 2 paintings of the Creation of the Earth and Adam/Eve story...
For lunch, we went to this creperie (what other kind of food would you expect in South America?) which was a lot of fun. They challenged you to make a perfect crepe, and if you did, your lunch would be free. It was sorta like the TV show "Just Like Mom". As you can see from the picture, I failed miserably at the task (but it was a lot of fun, and the guy used his perfect crepe to make me a yummy chocolate banana one)... If I had to guess the guy's name, hmmm... it would be Jose Luis. Appears that every male I meet here is named Jose Luis.
Then we flew to Lima (population ~10 million) for our last 2 nights. We were told in advance Lima is a sprawling city and it was true. The traffic jam leading up to our hotel was not a lot of fun. We had heard that Lima was a bit dangerous but we saw no evidence of this here on this sign...
We stayed in Miraflores which is a rich suburb full of casinos (kinda unusual and strange for us to see given that we had just come from the countryside and so much simplicity and poverty). Our first night in Lima we also learned first hand about the 19% food sales tax that apparently is only added to foreigner's meals. Although the meal was a tad pricey for Peru standards, we ended up having a very nice ceviche, a specialty in Peru.
The next day in Lima turned out to be a mini food adventure. We started our day shopping for some clothes and ran into a nice salesperson guy in the store who sent us on a mission to eat the best of Lima cuisine (he wrote this on a receipt in his store as you can see). Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to eat as much of the following as possible... according to the guy (likely named Jose Luis) there was a food market 'just a short walk away' where we could sample the best of Peruvian local cuisine. Of course... we were in!!! I knew what the first item was on thst list but I deciced I was going to try it anyhow...
So we started walking and soon realized that the "short walk away" was actually walking 20-30 blocks downtown form the suburb we were in. We decided to get on the local public transit - minibuses which have a man at the door hollering out to passerbys in order to get you on to the bus. All the buses go the same direction (I think) but slightly different prices and slightly different levels of cleanliness. Of course, we had to find one of the more dirty ones to really get into it. In the picture the guy in the red shirt with grey vest is 'working the door'.
We finally arrived at the food stations and treated ourselves to almost everything on the list. It kinda reminded me of a latino CNE. The chicharron (that means pork - sorry rabbi) was quite tasty. Then we dug in to the cuy (guinea pig, yep that's correct! See photo). As you can see from the photo, they leave the tooth and claw in the guinea pig. It kinda tasted like chicken but it was really hard to find the meat. I didn't mind it but put it this way, I woudn't order it again. The best thing on the list was Picarones, the latino version of Tiny Tom donuts which were very yummy (and not tiny).
There was also a little bit of love going on at the food event. "Toothy" pictured here with me I think had a bit of a crush on me. He kept looking over at us while we were eating our guinea pig so I decided I would take a photo with him holding a large piece of meat. He had a very sharp front tooth so I nicknamed him toothy.
We had a lot of fun trying all the food, then hopped back on a bus to our hotel, had dinner, then got up for our early flight back to Buenos Aires.
All in all, Lima had a lot to offer but was hard unless you knew someone there (I only met Toothy later so it was too late for a tour guide). Also, the gay scene is really undercover and clubs only open up really late, so we didn't check it out....
I will leave you with a nice photo taken in Miraflores of some nice buildings. It was a fantastic 11 days in Peru, seeing everything from mountains, canyons, lakes, condors, historic ruins, art, and tasting the amazing cuisine. I will always remember this trip, and if I forget, I have this blog to remind me.
The next couple of weeks will likely fly by here in BA. I start a formal Spanish school, have Ariel's brother coming to visit, and the month (and Act 2) will culminate with us flying back home for a whirlwind wedding weekend (my sister's). Lots of great stuff to be looking forward. As always, I'll keep you informed throughout the adventures...
Miguelito :)
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