9 Days in Perú

Up to today I've been to and through 4 Peruvian cities and towns--

My lovely Chris showed me around Lima for the first two days; we stayed in Miraflores (the really, expensive tourist part of town), where we saw the main square, a museum on food (knowing me and Chris, how could we not?), and the coast.





Then we took a 16-hour bus from Lima to Arequipa (it was an overnight bus so I was knocked out for most of it thank god), then went straight to our hostel...where we had the room at the very height of all the churches, so we had one of the best views of downtown and the mountains and Volcán Misti (part of the Andes range).

In Arequipa we tried all sorts of foods (amazing ceviche, anticuchos (grilled cow's heart), queso helado (don't know what it is but it's like reeally tasty ice cream). We also got to see "Juanita the Ice Princess", the most intact mummy they've found in this part of the Andes range. She was a child sacrificed to appease the gods after a volcano had erupted. The exhibit was really interesting, though they were so set on preserving the mummy by keeping the lights low that you could barely see her. You could see all the artifacts they found with her though, which were fascinating. We also found some tremendous Peruvian chocolate and Argentinian wine (a little under $5 a bottle), and some new Peruvian friends who we met in their alpaca clothing store, which one of them showed us where to buy tamales and told us some fantastic stories about Peruvian culture and history.

From Arequipa, we left for Colca Cañon, where the deepest cañon in the world, Cotahuasi, is. We passed through Chivay, where we got to try alpaca meat and see the beautiful embroidered clothing that the women there wear, then stayed the night on the edge of the cañon in a town called Cabaconde. We woke at 6am and started out with our packs on our backs for the cañon. It was a very odd experience for me, since when I'm going climbing, I'm used to going up first, not down then up. So the second day was a little more difficult since we were already sore from walking 8 hours the day before and had to go up the length of a very, very steep cañon. But, proud to say it, we made it to the top in 2.5 hours, passing others who left an hour before us. There were places for us to stay in the cañon, so we walked in the first day and out the next. Fortunately, we just barely made the 9am bus, which was the only one we could have caught to make it back to Arequipa in time for our bus to Lima...luck is on our side!






Now Chris just has medical examinations and training in Lima, so I'll be hanging out here for 4 days, then we'll head up to where I'll be staying put--Cutervo.

Till then, hasta luego!