Arequipa

Arequipa was our next stop on the descent down into Chile. I was a bit horrified when we were told that our plans to continue on were thrwarted by the closure of the Pan American highway. Apparently, civilians were upset about the plans to start mining in south Peru and they stood out on the highway until their demands were met. Effective? Yes. Makes my life easier? No! However, the protest was lifted on the day before we actually did want to leave and it didn´t effect our plans, besides give me a scare and cause us to weigh all of our other options, such as skipping Chile all together.

But back to Arequipa... where to begin? I´d say this is a huge city of many layers. There is an upscale band of shops and restaurants surrounding the main square that even included food from Morocco! This area was tempting but far out of our backpacker budget. Our hostel was about 10 blocks outside of this area and we found nice cafes to eat at. A standout place was this woman´s family-run cafe where her and her son whipped up a salad with whatever ingredients I could translate into Spanish! Pictured is cerviche, Peru´s classic seafood dish that is uncooked but marinated in citrus. Delicious! This part of town was pretty nice. However mostly I found this town to be falling apart in certain bits, parks were overgrown and locked, and Arequipa was swarming with cars. The polution was, dare I say, harder to take in than Beijing´s! I also included photos of a church that was open nearby (it said I could take photos as long as I didn´t use flash!). The churches here are VERY ornate, and I was cracking up over the sign that translates to ¨Turn off your cell, Él Senor (God) wants to have a conversation with you.¨ The photo with the candles was, surprise, surprise, a protest. We have been seeing a lot of these in Peru!