Frontera to Frontera, Pt 4.

After our trekking adventure we were exhausted and had to decide whether we wanted to continue rushing and rushing and see all that we could see in the 2 weeks Mike had to visit or if we should take a break, cut some things out, and relax a bit. We decided on the latter and skipped Puno and its floating islands and headed to Arequipa instead.

The first night we stayed in a hostel that was good enough, a clean private room (shared bath) with high ceilings, but not much in the way of charm and we wanted charm. So the next day we sought it out and ended up at a nice little place quite a bit South of the main square. It had a grassy little garden and several roof decks and patios to overlook the city and the volcano that towered over it. It had a friendly dog to greet us whenever we came in from exploring and on our first night we discovered that our room was the favorite of a cat with curious blue eyes who would enter our room through the open window. We enjoyed fruit salads and crossword puzzles on our grassy courtyard and get really sunburned because we ignored the fact that we were still in the desert. We ate at nearly every vegetarian restaurant in town, befriended a local doctor and fellow veg-diner, visited an old convent spookily lit by laterns and fires at night, and thoroughly explored the local food and artisan markets.

Mike decided to fly from Arequipa back to Lima for his return flight home so that we could have extra time to spend with each other in comfort, instead of racing back to the polluted mega-city of Lima and spending our last hours together on a cramped 18 or 22 hour bus ride. We had a poor excuse for a cheese empanada at the airport before parting ways, me back to our cosy little hostel, made less cosy in his absense, and him back to his routine of busses and airports and constant motion.

I am very grateful to have been able to spend two weeks out of my 6.5 month journey traveling with Mike. It was a great experience and although we acted as super tourists while he was here I was happy to be able to show him a taste of my way of life here and my love of Latin America. I hope he was able to slow down enough during our hurried adventure to absorb some of the peace I find here. I hope that Latin America has gotten into his blood and that he is eager to return again someday soon.