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We left Cusco on the overnight bus and settled down with our avocado sandwiches. Lisa gobbled more than she could manage, and with the rocking of the bus it all came up again into a small plastic bag. Charlie luckily slept though the ordeal. Lisa blames the excessive amount of indigenous people in the aisle squashing up against her and stinking out the bus.
We both woke up lots during the night because it was freezing on the bus. We had gone with a cheapie company so this was where we started paying.
Eventually we pulled into Arequipa bus station at about 6.30am, where we were met by a spindly young boy who took us to a hostel. The room was quite cheap and it had HOT WATER! This was good news. However, the room had no external light source (but beggars can´t be choosers). We headed out into the town, but soon had to return as Lisa complained of Jane Fairfax disease and had to spend the rest of the day in bed. Charlie didn?t mind this, as he also got to spend the rest of the day in bed.
Later on in the day, Charlie forced Lisa to get up and tempted her with a vegetarian restaurant. After the meal, Lisa realised that the illness was possibly just hunger pains. During the meal, an old American lady kept complaining to the man running the restaurant (he was out front and his wife in the kitchen) about how slow the service was, and accusing the wife of putting salt and sugar in her mashed potatoes. All in English, none of which either of them understood. We cringed silently until she stormed out, seconds before her meal was ready.
While in Arequipa, we planned to visit Colca Canyon, the world´s 2nd deepest canyon. We had planned to visit on a bus tour and just spend one night in a village. Somehow, we ended up deciding to take a 3 day trek into the canyon, spending 2 nights in the depths of it. The lady at our hotel tried to sell us a package tour, but we found it cheaper elsewhere. When we returned, she kept trying to make us take her tour but didn´t understand the concept of "price matching", and kept quoting us prices higher than the other tour agency. Eventually she realised she was beaten.
That evening we were in our beds and the room started to shake. Not because of anything untoward, but because there was an earthquake! How exciting! The doors rattled violently but nothing fell on our heads. The local people did not seem at all bothered by us, but it was a first time for us so we were very excited!
The next day we went to sit in the park and watched a very angry looking lady shouting at people as they walked past and shaking things at them. She kept glaring and waving things at us as well. As we pondered what she was doing, we suddenly realised that she was selling bird seed to feed the pigeons in the park. Not very Mary Poppins like at all! She was one scary lady!
Later on that day we went to visit a museum that housed an "ice mummy", one of the Inca girl sacrifices that had been frozen in the snow at her place of death. When found, she was put in a glass freezer for people to gawk at. We went in with expectations of a perfectly preserved body. What we actually got was a frozen skeleton, complete with ice crystals. However, we had a nice guide who took us around the museum and got to watch a GCSE history video. So we were content
The following day we decided to go horse riding. We got taken by cab to the "stables", which was just someone´s house in a residential street with horses in the back. One other man joined us from the hostel, whose real name was never discovered, but was refered to as Sideshow Bob (see pics for explanation). We headed off on the horses, trotting through villages and fields and galloping along paths. Eventually we reached the river, where we sat for a drink on the banks. The guide started talking very animatedly about Lisa´s breasts to Charlie, referring to them as her "glorias". Lisa was unaware, since she was enthralled in a conversation with Sideshow Bob. Soon, the guide proposed salsa dancing on the river banks. Sensibly, Sideshow Bob ran away and got on his horse, but Lisa and Charlie were trapped in the hideous scenario. The guide taught us some steps and then danced with Lisa for a long time. Eventually, it was time for us to return to our horses. We were both relieved.
When we retuned with the horses, the guide somehow managed to make arrangements for us all to go out salsa dancing with him when we returned from the Canyon. Fear was once again instilled.
We returned back to the hotel saddle sore. We packed for our trip to the canyon the next day. Throughout the night we were awoken by the noisy kulaks in he next room watching TV at 3am and turning on their lights (which flooded our room as well). Grrrrr!
Final thoughts: A nice town and much warmer than Cusco. Strange tour guides made it even more special.
Mark out of 10 = 6.5
Next time... Colca Canyon
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