Lima to Arequipa

On Monday, we started out a little later than we’d have liked to, but had a good day nonetheless. We went to Huaca Pucllana which is an adobe and clay pyramid in the  middle of Lima, built between 200 and 700 AD by the Lima Culture. It was quite impressive, and Mike was fully archy geeking out (he has a minor in archeology) at the active archeology work that was happening. Up until 1981 people used this big hill in the middle of the Miraflores district for motocross until they started unearthing things and realized it to be a pre-Spanish, pre-Incan historical site.

 

As part of the tour we got to see a llama and some alpacas, guinea pigs, and a bunch of plants (pumpkin, squash, corn, corn, more corn, quinua, and some flowers). There were a bunch of flower pictures taken.

We grabbed a cab back to the hotel and Nathan, Rox, and Tyson headed over to the Church and Convent of San Francisco for a tour including the catacombs. There are a bunch of teacher protests in Peru with the teachers asking for more wages, as such the riot police came in to defend the building across the street from our hotel. It was good to feel safe. Here’s the view from my hotel window:

From there it was grabbing cabs and heading to the airport. We got there and checked in and grabbed something to eat. I had a McNifica, which was essentially just a regular type burger with nothing special to it.

We got through security and met up with Mom & Dad who were back from Chile and from Ica and Huacachina in Peru.

We flew TACA to Arequipa (about 900 km south of Lima) where a 90 minute flight saved us a 14 hour bus ride. The flight was great on a newer A319 and it wasn’t full. I wasn’t up in first class like Mike or Dave (which when they booked was $10 cheaper than economy), but I had all 3 seats to myself. We got an empanada for supper and it was free drinks. :) We landed in Arequipa and took 3 cabs for a ride throughout town to get to our hostel. We got all checked in and headed over to the Plaza del Armas to wander around for the little bit of time we had there. We all agreed it was one of the most beautiful squares any of us had seen.

We went to the grocery store to try a bunch of new fruits, cheeses, and the like, and came back to the hotel. We met up with our tour guide for our Colca Canyon tour starting on Tuesday.