!

Last post before Halifax!

John didn´t give you much information on Arequipa!

We arrived there from Cusco on an only moderately comfortable overnight bus. Taxis fought over us at the bus terminal, and the hostel didn´t have our double bed ready so they checked us into a twin room. We showered and napped on top of the covers so as not to mess it up too much.

In our two days in Arequipa we had an over-rushed and slightly unenthusiastic tour of an immense and decadent dominican convent, sampled some pisco, had a two-course lunch for two, with a litre of coke for about $2.50, visited another pre-incan mummy, thought about going to the movies but discovered everything sold out when we got there, and had a delicious gourmet dinner and a few drinks in a Montreal-themed bar.

The next day, being Sunday, everything was closed, but we managed to book ourselves a private city tour, checked out a bunch of lookouts and the founder´s mansion. Then I had pork adobe, a regional specialty, for lunch, and John at last ate his guinea pig. There is photographic evidence. I found the whole thing distateful.

Then we bummed around Arequipa with nothing to do til it was time to catch our much more (very long distance) bus to Lima.

Got here around 10, cabbed to the very nice hostel and crashed.

When we got up we wandered Miraflores, a very chi-chi suberb of Lima, visited a pre-inca pyramid, looked at he beaches. Realized I was getting a cold.

On the way in, we met our super friendly and helpful hostel host, borrowed a dvd and set out for bed. Took nighttime cold medicine and managed to miss the movie.

Yesterday we took a good look at a collecion of pottery dating from 1000 b.c. to the conquiest, including an interesting selection of érotic´pots. There are photos of this too. We bussed back downtown, got sort of lost and cabbed to chinatown for lunch. Followed that up with a very disappointing tour of an inquisition museum(friggin giudes) then miraculously encountered hostel host Francis mid-tour. Tagged along for the end of it, then headed from there home, then out to famous restaurant Astrid y Gaston. Delicious!

Today, I think we´ll go to the Catacombs, then maybe to the beach, if the weather shapes up.

So this is it! But stay tuned, as we´ll surely have more lists and summaries and wrapups and I know I´ll work on the photos this weekend!