The white city
Greetings from Arequipa!
The second-largest city in Peru, Arequipa is a charming town surrounded by three snow-capped volcanic peaks, including El Misti. The entire historical centre, where we’re staying, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Arequipa’s nickname is la ciudad blanca because of the buildings built from white volcanic stone. It reminds me a bit of Jerusalem — not quite the same stone, but a similar effect. Needless to say, it’s quite beautiful.
We arrived here after a short local flight on LAN this morning from Lima. Immediately, we noticed the desolate desert landscape and many mountainous peaks that were visible from the air. Also, Arequipa is at an altitude of about 2,300 meters. While that’s not all that high, compared to where we’re headed, it’s still enough to be noticeable when coming directly from sea level. The air is dryer here, the sun is stronger, and thirst comes much quicker. We’re hoping to acclimatize a bit here before heading up to Cusco, which is much higher. But we definitely have had to increase the paranoia meter around sunblock, water and exertion.
The Bed & Breakfast where we’re staying is charming and spacious, located a block from the main square with a great view of the churches and the mountains in the background. We checked in and took it easy a bit before setting out to explore.
Churches, shopping and alpaca
We walked a block up to the Plaza de Armas, which looks like many Latin American main squares: A big church on one side, attractive historic buildings on the others, and walkways all around with a fountain in the middle. This one’s main claim to fame is that it’s built out of the white volcanic stone, and it’s quite old. Even though I do tend to get jaded about such things, I have to admit it’s a particularly nice main square. We got some pretty photos there.
Then we walked up to the San Francisco Church, and got some snapshots in the courtyard. It was quite pretty, though I couldn’t quite understand why the Buddhist-looking flags were hanging in a Catholic church.
We ran some errands next, slowly making our way through the compact city centre. We stopped in to confirm our tour for tomorrow, bought some water, and stocked up on extra sunscreen since we could see that we’ll be going through it much quicker than anticipated here. Vanessa and Marie-Andree both got pretty badly burned in Lima on the first day. So far, I’ve mostly escaped, but I’m not taking any chances.
We also did an ATM stop, and browsed in some of the shops. Marie-Andree was looking for a swimsuit, since she’d forgotten to bring hers for the hot springs visits ahead, but it’s heading into winter here and the shops are mostly showing wool sweaters and jackets so we struck out. The baby alpaca handicrafts are everywhere here, and most are beautiful, though quite expensive in the good shops. The souvenir-type stores have much cheaper goods, though I’m sure most of those are lower-quality knockoffs.
Let’s go to the pub
By that point, we were getting a bit tired, even though we hadn’t done much. So we decided to take a load off and headed to an English pub. Yes, really. It was basically empty when we got there, though I can see how it’s probably a happening place later on in the evening. The pub had one of the best selections of craft Peruvian beers in Arequipa. Marie and I each had some excellent coffee IPA, and Vanessa enjoyed her papaya kolsch. Then we split a bottle of chicha morada beer, which is something fairly unique to Peru, made with purple corn. It wasn’t particularly good, but where else in the world can you drink something like that?
On the way back from the pub, we stopped off to make a dinner reservation for tonight. And our timing heading back the hotel was just perfect to catch a spectacular sunset over the snow-capped peaks. The light in this city is just stunning.
Cui or alpaca, anyone?
Well, Lima may be South America’s foodie capital. But tonight, we decided that Arequipa may give it a run for its money. We decided to splurge on dinner at Chicha, a fancy-ish restaurant run by Gaston Acurio, a world-famous chef best known for his top-10 restaurants in Lima, including Astrid y Gaston. This restaurant in Arequia is off a lovely courtyard a few blocks from our B&B. Of course, in our jeans and backpacker getups, we weren’t exactly dressed for the occasion. But what the heck? Everyone around here is dressed down, too. So why not, right? I even wore my nice shoes, since, dammit, I brought them all this way, so I’d better get some use out of them!
The menu included a number of exotic Peruvian delicacies, including cui (guinea pig) and alpaca steak. The girls decided to be adventurous and give them a try. I stuck with the vegetarian side of the menu, and ordered a spinach and ricotta cannelloni. It was excellent, too, although very rich, to the point where I liked it more than my stomach did. Oh well, it was still an enjoyable experience all in all, though none of us had any room for dessert after that.
Early to bed, very early to rise
We headed back to the B&B after dinner to try to get a few hours of sleep. And I do mean a few, since our tour to Colca Canyon tomorrow actually departs in the middle of the night. Why do we do this to ourselves? Because life is short and vacation time is even shorter, that’s why.