Arequipa

Breakfast at 9 followed by a city walking tour with our guide at 10.

Stunning weather up here. Not a cloud in the sky.  Fairly cool in the morning but it warmed up to 15 plus degrees by lunchtime.

We walked from the hotel to the main square.  All Peruvian towns and cities seem to have this focal point and the local council seem to spend plenty of money on making them ornately beautiful.

That is Luis, our guide, on the left, giving a talk.

From here we were shown the "safe" areas that we could explore later on our own and then we were taken to a huge indoor market on the edge of the city centre.

Our guide took us to an enchilada stall and explained the choices available. Then to a whole alleyway full of juice stalls.  They promote a lot of Coca drinks to help with altitude sickness.  We have been drinking Coca tea ever since we arrived in Lima.

After passing by stalls with whole fresh chickens (feet and all), heads and innards of various animals and Llama foetuses we stopped at a more palatable section that sold cheeses and various snacks like popcorn.  Here our guide purchased a bag of Coca leaves and a small bottle of some alcohol based concoction.  And here began our introduction to preparing our bodies for high altitude.

First we put out our hands and some of this alcohol was poured into them.  We then rubbed our hands together and then inhaled the fumes through our noses and into our sinuses.  It caused everyone to cough uncontrollably with the strong sensation.

We now took a small handful of Coca leaves, put a piece of rock on top, and rolled the leaves up to chew in the sides of our mouths.  The rock acts as a catalyst apparently.

Lindsey about to fold up her Coca leaves

The plan is to chew and suck the juice from the leaves which reduces the effects of altitude sickness.  After about ten minutes our tongues and cheeks felt numb.  We were recommended to do this once a day.

After our tour Lindsey and I headed out to find a couple of GeoCaches.

The first one eluded us for while until we found the entrance to an inner courtyard of shops and cafes.  There were some very upmarket tourist shops here with some beautiful garments made from Alpaca and Llama fibre.

Eventually we realised that the cache was hidden up on the first floor but to our dismay there were three local youths sitting right where the hide was.

So, off to the next Cache we ventured into an area slightly outside our guides "safe" area.  The little street that our GPS took us too had been completely rebuilt in the last ten years following an earthquake.  There were several young artists sitting on benches in this enclave painting aspects of the buildings.  We arrived at GZ, outside a church and with a very specific hint searched for the cache to find that it had disappeared.  Now it was time to head back into town to the first cache to find that the youths had been replaced by a woman and a pram.  Thankfully she was moving about in an attempt to get her child to sleep which gave us the opportunity to make the find.

After finding the cache it was time to do a tourist photo with Chachani volcano in the background.

There are three volcanoes in the distance overlooking Arequipa.  El Misti is a classic volcanic mountain standing on its own and the other two with long Peruvian names that I cannot pronounce are shaped more like Ruapehu having had their tops blown off with eruptions.  These mountains are between 5800m and 6100m high.  It is surprising that now, in the middle of winter, they still have very little snow on them.  Mind you we are only fifteen degrees south of the equator so I suppose that has a lot to do with it.

We decided to go back to the market to find some dinner.  We had enchiladas, which wasn't a great decision, and some pork that came with corn.

Another walk in the town square to do some people watching followed and then back to the hotel for an early night in preparation for a big day tomorrow.