WEATHER: Hot and 21C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Great night’s sleep – thanks again again Gray
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Tingling in my fingers and toes from altitude pills
BUYS OF THE DAY: Roof top beer was only 1.80AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: Feliz Navidad – Merry Christmas
I must have had a great sleep last night as both Kate and I were both awake at 5.30am. There was a large group of 70 university students that had arrived after we had all gone to bed, but as our tent is in the slum (further from everyone else’s) we didn’t hear them swimming in the ocean at 2am and other shenanigans. This morning it was time to pull down the tents. I must say the tent improved over the 2 nights we spent in there, and it was nice to know that we wouldn’t be seeing those suckers for another 4 weeks. With us being up so early we were the first to have completely packed up and ready to go. Kate popped on the kettle and we had cereal while we waited for the sleepy heads to wake up and pack up.
We were on the road by 7.30am with our final destination this afternoon in Arequipa. It was purely a travel day in the truck. We followed the Peru coast for the first 3 hours of the morning. There were some stunning vies as we drove along the cliffs and we are slowly heading upwards, as Arequipa is 2300m above sea level. We did a servo stop at 10.30am and I bought a packet of chips, a coke and some wafers for 2.80AUD. Peru is dirt cheap.
Lunch was at 12.30 just by the side of the road in front of a yoghurt shop, so we could also use their facilities. Outcome the tables with salads, roast beef, cheese and coleslaw for lunch. Gray mentioned before we get any higher we should let some of the air out of our toiletries, as we still had 1000m to climb and there could be a possibility that the stuff could explode everywhere. So all the packs were pulled off the truck, all the pressure released from the shampoos, face cleansers and anything else we could think of and then repacked back into the truck. 1.15pm we were all back on the truck and Gray had started the truck, we moved 2m and then stopped. Uh Oh. The truck had popped an airbag somewhere, funny that Gray had only just told us about the altitude and then the truck pops something. It only took him 45 minutes to fix the problem and we were back on the road for the last 2 hour push into Arequipa.
We arrived into Arequipa at 3.40pm in the afternoon and you wouldn’t guess there was a hotel there. It was surrounded by a massive white wall, but when the gates opened there was a beautiful blue heritage building hiding behind the walls. Check in only takes 10 minutes and after we had dropped off all our gear we met back in the lobby for the quick Mark tour of downtown Arequipa. Today was Sunday, so there were a lot of shops closed, but there was still a certain vibe around the town and we felt safe enough and I really liked the place. The Plaza de Mayor was a great looking plaza and we stopped in at a roof top café that over looked it and hot amazing views of the 2 main volcanoes Misty and Chachina. It really is a beautiful city and I am looking forward to getting out and about tomorrow. We have a game plan of getting to the Cathedral, the Monastery and then to see Juanita the Ice Princess, which will be explained in tomorrow’s blog. Throw in a spot of shopping a supermarket stop and we have an action packed day.
After drinks we all did a Famous Five and went in different directions for food. I asked Kate if she wanted pizza to which she replied she has been eating a lot of pizza lately and wanted vegetarian but then no-one else wanted veggie so we were going to go to the kebab place with a few others, when Lizzie and Paul said they were going for pizza and she changed her mind!!! WHAT. No offence taken pal…….. Dinner was great; the pizza was good and with a drink and some garlic bread cost me $8. I’m telling you it so cheap here…. I LOVE South America so far!
The walk back to the hotel was only 10 minutes if that, where we had free Wi-Fi access, so my blog was updated, Facebook and emails checked and I am STILL trying to load bloody Antarctica photos. THIS has been the bane of my internetting the last 3 weeks. I really am not sure why it isn’t working properly; maybe this is Facebook way of telling me I have far too many photos in my profile. Well I have news for them, I am going to persevere and I will get my photos loaded, even if it means I have to do it one by one. I have around 8 more Antarctica folders, around 13 Galapagos folders and then currently around 6 Peru folders. See what I mean it is getting out of control and it isn’t from lack of trying.
Arequipa looks amazing and I can’t wait to get back in the mode of some sightseeing again.
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