Day 10: Arequipa

My first night in Arequipa I watched the sun set over the city from a beautiful plaza a few blocks uphill from my hostel. To the north towered two enourmous mountains, the magnificent Chachani and the spectacular El Misti, a conical behemoth at whose foot lies Arequipa -- 'the White City', as it is known. I prefer to call it 'the City of Dogs on the Roof', which I feel is a more fitting name.

I feel much better, much more at home here than I did in Lima. I imagine part of this change is just me getting accustomed to being in Peru -- but I cannot help but give some credit to the beautiful and friendly city of Arequipa. I will spend only four days here, tomorrow heading five hours east to the city of Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca. They have been a laid back few days. I arrived here early Saturday morning after an unnecesarily uncomfortable 16 hour bus ride from Lima.

Exhibit A: The lady sitting next to me, while quiet and friendly while awake, snored like she was dreaming of intense constipation for most of the trip.
Exhibit B: The on-board entertainment system, while not playing crappy Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish, played the same two Andean flute songs over and over again. And over again.
Exhibit C: Sixteen hours. Which is like watching thirty-two consecutive episodes of The Nanny.
I rest my case.

I split most of Saturday between sitting around the hotel and talking to Milagros, one of the girls who works at Hostel Bhelen, and attempting to nap in said hostel. Today has not been the most active of days either, morning spent again sitting around the hostel shooting the breeze, and the afternoon spent walking around downtown Arequipa and catching up on some emails, blogging, and Skyping. Sunday, however, was full of fun and interesting things -- so far my best day in Peru.

I woke up planning on hitting the main museums and the famous Santa Catalina convent. That was before, of course, that I realized it was Sunday and none of those locations were open. After an hour of light travel depression, boredom-anxiety, and general over-thinking of life, I decided I would simply walk to El Misti. Google Maps made it appear that I could simply walk from the streets of northern Arequipa into the national park. I walked through downtown Arequipa, bustling and full of white stone buildings -- thus 'the White City'. I walked uphill, through the Miraflores District where every few minutes I heard an incredibly loud noise, similar to a gunshot or construction accident (those are my New York City comparisons). I found, to my delight, that people in Arequipa responded to my greetings instead of just looking away or muttering as was the custom in Lima. Miraflores and its paved streets gave way to Alto Misti (note: I do not actually know what the name of this community is, or whether it actually has a name. I call it Alto Misti because all of the combis that drove there had "Alto Misti" written on the front windshield.) As I was walking down a dusty street trying to convince stray dogs that I had no Bacon Bits in my pockets, I saw a few police officers standing a "block" ahead.

Note on Peruvian police. I have yet to see any police officer actually do anything law-enforcement related. They mostly seem to stand around with sunglasses on trying to look cool. They don't harrass anyone, which is nice. They just stand or drive around and try to catch surrepitious glances of female backsides. I can't fault them for that, I suppose, but they do seem awfully lazy. However, have yet to see a police officer eating donuts.

Back to Alto Misti. There was a group of twenty or so people gathered around the police officers, one of whom seemed to be important. I say this because he had extra stripes on his uniform, sunglasses, and talked a lot. This was a community meeting I had stumbled upon, apparently due to the lack of police presence in Alto Misti. The main police dude talked like a politician -- which is to say, mostly bullshit -- but the people were generally receptive. They wanted a better way to contact the police, especially at night, as many if not all of them lacked telephones. The main dude promised that they would try and get a radio to put somewhere in the area. After the meeting ended I watch a couple of toddlers play tag (or 'te piqué' -- "I poked you"), which was the most adorable thing I have seen in years. I saw one of the little ones later pushing a cart around a dusty field and took a long-range picture of him.

I wandered further uphill to the very edge of the community. Past Alto Misti is all property of the Peruvian Military. I took some nice pictures from the top of this last civilian hill and then wandered back down past the fútbol game (pictured). Just as I was walking by a taxi drove up on the other side of the field, drivers pops out some serious speakers and starts blasting salsa and cumbia. I took this as a good omen and sat for a while to watch. Seemed like a regular Sunday activity for these folks, all joking around with each other while remaining pretty competitive. There was one kid in the second game, looked about 15 or 16, who was head and shoulders above the rest.

More wandering, and managed to get myself fairly lost back in the paved streets area, when all of a sudden I heard the Incredibly Loud Noise again, this time very close. I tracked it down to a high school graduation ceremony on a basketball/fútbol court (there are many of these double-use courts). There were some fairly drunk fellows on a roof next to the court firing these ridiculous fireworks out of what looked like an oversized lute, and enjoying themselves accordingly. The noise was so great that even when I was looking directly at the firing base I still flinched when they went off -- but all of the local people seemed not to notice at all. It seems to me that Peruvians, at least in big cities, have an incredible noise tolerance. Me, I'm still getting used to all of the honking.

My stomach decided that it was time for lunch in a big way, so I pulled into Restaurante El Tronquito, a few blocks from the graduation ceremony. This was the best, not to mention biggest, meal I have had yet here. A run-down:
1. Rocoto Relleno -- big hot pepper stuffed with meat, cheese, and vegetables and baked to juicy perfection
2. Pastel de Papa -- slices of baked potato covered in delicious creamy sauce
3. Meat on a bone -- still not sure what kind of meat, but it was chewy and incredible
4. Pig's feet -- not my favorite, but still fun to try
5. Cuzqueña beer -- tall boy bottle, tastes similar to Sierra Nevada
All of this, plus rice, condiments, and a glass of anonymous juice (every meal in Arequipa comes with this glass of purple juice with sediments, have yet to figure out what it actually is...maybe some mysteries are better unsolved?). All of this for 14 soles -- less than $5.

At this point it was obviously nap time, and with another two hours of staggering I made it back to the hostel. The rest of the day is sort of a blur. Such a worthwhile blur though. Perhaps that is the best one can say about a day of travel. A worthwhile blur.