02/13 - Arequipa: El Convento

We woke up on Arequipa, and visited Monasterio de Santa Catalina. It's like a city inside a fortress, full of impressive artwork and architecture. It's a preserve, now, but a section of it is off-limits; still functioning as a cloistered convent. The place was founded in 1579, as a convent for wealthy girls. Their families gifted paintings and other treasures to decorate their cells. Many pieces were stored after they died, and have been restored and are now displayed in the museum.

I am thankful we have a few photos on Jim's camera, but it's really unfortunate that we lost mine. Most of the walls there are painted bright blue or adobe red, and [completely coincidentally], that day, I was wearing a bright blue shirt and Jim an adobe red shirt. There were some really beautiful shots there. The place is like a beautiful labyrinth. We spent hours there. And I even bought a chocolate [made by nuns] at the gift shop. It is certainly worth browsing the photos on their website.

We had to rush to make it to the Cathedral before dark. It spans the entire length of the Plaza de Armas, and contains a massive pipe-organ; the largest in South America. Parts of the cathedral have been destroyed by earthquakes and rebuilt numerous times; most recently in 2001, when one tower was badly damaged, and the other completely destroyed.

We went to bed early, because we had to leave for Cañón del Colca at 3 the next morning.

02/12 - Arequipa

The night bus gave us a sandwich. I saved mine for morning.

We arrived in Arequipa around 7:30am, got a cab to the touristy part, and had breakfast on the balcony of a restaurant overlooking the Plaza de Armas. Jim had a panqueque con platanos, and I had my first maté de coca. In Peru, I am fairly tall, but all the tables are incredibly high for me. I don't understand it.

We walked until we found Hospedaje el Caminante Class. It had a lovely courtyard dining area, and small, sunny lounging space on the roof. Our room had one double bed and a set of bunk beds. It was spacious, and even had a tiny balcony with french doors, overlooking Calle Santa Catalina. The area of Arequipa that we stayed in was very clean, bright, and colonial. And it was sunny all the time.

In the afternoon, we did some wandering and shopping. We got tiny Pisco Sours at one of the shops in the beautiful alley behind the Cathedral. The guy overheard us talking about how good (yet small) they were, so he gave us a third one for free. Then I thought I lost my cell phone, and was extremely relieved to find I had left it in the hotel room. The real loss would come much later, when I had hundreds more photos to lose.

In the evening, we walked a little farther from the tourist area and found a tiny chifa, where we got chaufa con pollo, which came with the most delicious sauce-- some kind of spicy, creamy cilantroey thing. Mmmmm. Huge meal, for ~$2.50.

02/11 - Nazca

Our bus (Cruz del Sur again) left Paracas at 7:15am. They played a Cirque du Soleil performance, but I slept through most of it. The inter-city buses there were great-- double-deckers with more foot-room and reclining-room than an international flight... blanket, pillow, movie... and they feed you, too! All for about $27.

We arrived at the Nazca station around 11:30am. We got lunch from a cart across the road. She heaped our plates high with fried rice, spaghetti, and chicken legs, all smothered with creamy, greenish sauce. The enormous meal cost s/.8 ($3.15).


We wandered into the tour company at Hotel Alegría, and booked a flight over the Nazca Lines. They were nice enough to store our baggage and  let us use their courtyard & pool area for the day. It was gorgeous there. The photos I took are gone, so I grabbed one from their website.

They provided a mini-bus to the airport, and we went up in an Alas Peruanas Cessna. We had a pilot, a guide, and a British couple for company. There was a great photo of me sitting in the back seat of the plane, wearing the headset, getting ready for takeoff... but it was lost. We flew around the most popular figures of the Nazca Lines (Whale, Triangles, Trapezoids, Owl Man, Dog, Monkey, Hummingbird, Spider, Condor, Flamingo, Parrot, Tree, Hands). They are pretty damned impressive, but it is definitely hard to get a good idea of their massive scale from the airplane.(The "Hummingbird" is pictured here.)

After the flight, we walked and shopped Nazca a bit (Plaza de Armas pictured.) Then we relaxed in and around the pool, then had dinner & drinks at a local pub. I got a "Cuba Libre," which is rum & Coke, and it was super-weak, so I got a free rum shot. Then we caught our 10pm Cruz del Sur to Arequipa.

02/10 - Paracas

At 7:30am, we took a boat tour to Islas Bellestas. Guano-miners once operated there, but, now, it is a reserve for countless birds and sea lions. The smell is overpowering, and they load the tourist boats so full that it is a pretty slow ride out, but it was still worth it. We took lots and lots of photos. Thankfully, a few of them were on Jim's camera, because it has a better zoom than mine.


Later, we took a bus tour through the Reserva Nacional de Paracas (the entire peninsula). Much of it is desert, but there are some beautiful beaches and rock formations. We had lunch there. There were several tourist restaurants at the place where we stopped, but the guy who drew us in [to "Restaurant Turistico: La Tia Pily"] did so by promising free pisco sours. Then he went outside to recruit more tourists, and, when he finally came back, we had already ordered our food, and he said they had "run out" of free pisco sours. Ha, ha, aaah.

It was a long and tiring day. Eventually, we got back (sunburned), walked to the bus station, and bought tickets for our next destination: Nazca. Then we watched TV and slept.

02/09 - from Lima to Paracas

We checked out of the Flying Dog, then got a taxi to Lima's Cruz del Sur bus terminal. We left at 1:30pm. It was a pleasant and scenic ride. They fed us, and started Avatar, with English subtitles, after our journey was well underway. So, unfortunately, the bus stopped just as the climactic air battle was getting good. We got to the small, seaside town of Paracas around 5:30pm, and quickly found a hotel: Hostal el Amigo. Our room had 2 twin beds, which we pushed together. We went to the beach for sunset and I put my toes in the water. It was warm, but quite murky, so I did not venture farther.

02/08 - First Day in Lima

Peru is in the same time zone as the east coast of the US, so we lost 3 hours on the plane. It was midnight when we touched down in Lima. We were tired, disoriented, and totally unprepared. We had no itinerary or accommodations scheduled for any part of the trip. We spoke barely any Spanish, and the cab driver we selected from the horde at the airport turned out to speak only enough English to convince us to select him. After a long, expensive, confusing ride --stopping at many reasonably-priced hotels that were all booked up-- he brought us to a cramped, dirty, smelly, hot, expensive hotel ["Hotel Nirvana"] on the outskirts of the most expensive/touristy district (Miraflores), right on the side of a busy highway (Paseo do Republica). There were 3 twin-size beds crammed into the tiny room. It was way too hot  even consider sharing one. Someone was hammering on metal pipes just outside our [unclosable] bathroom window all night.

We slept poorly, but late, hurried through our mediocre complimentary desayunos Americanos, and rushed to check out on time. After hasty research, we got a cab to a nicer part of Miraflores --near Parque Kennedy-- where we got a room at the Flying Dog Hostel (my best "angry face" is pictured). The place was great: much cheaper, quieter, and cleaner. We had a queen bed,  private bath, and table & chairs. It was bright and airy, with free internet and beautiful communal spaces (one pictured). We found a grocery store a few blocks away, and bought food & potable water. We also got phone cards, but couldn't make them work with the public telephones we found. So Flying Dog booked us a bus to our next desination: Paracas.


In the evening, we walked around the nearby park, which we called "Parque del Gato," because it was full of adorable stray cats. There was live music, there, too, and a market with many touristy trinket  booths. Then, back at the Flying Dog's outdoor bar, we had a few cocktails made with Pisco. Drinks included: Pisco Sour (the national cocktail) and Machupicchu. They were tasty. Then we went to bed.

02/07 - Departure for Peru

 

Our flight (LAN 2609) departed SFO at 11:45am. It was 9 hours to Lima, during which time we were served two impressive meals, with the main dish in ceramic and the wine in glass. I took a gorgeous photo of sunset over the Pacific; plane wing in the foreground. These two internet photos remind me of it... but mine was better. The colors were much brighter and more dramatic. It was a drastic rainbow horizon, dividing completely black sky and sea. I will try not to mourn my photos in every post. But that is one that I particularly deeply regret losing.

I had a window seat (27L), on what I would describe as the passenger side of the plane. We had pillows, blankets, and personal TV monitors. It was quite pleasant. I watched "How to Train your Dragon," which I had already seen, but it's still adorable. I also watched "Seven Psychopaths." I did not know that a chunk of it takes place in Joshua Tree. [I was just there in January.]