View from our apartment at day and at dusk
Arequipa was a haven for us. We managed to find an apartment for cheap (cheaper than any hostel) and we pretty much had a 3 storey house to ourselves for a week! We were very happy. Never underestimate having your own space. After 9 months of having sometimes not even a room just to yourself where you can spread your things out and feel settled, we went to having a house with your own bed (big deal…) seperate living room (…wow…) and a CLEAN kitchen, not being used and mucked up by others where we didn’t have to store our food in the fridge in a plastic bag with our names on and no risk of it being eaten by others (this was the icing on the cake!) Its safe to say we were happy and felt at home and relaxed in Arequipa instantly.
Bearing this is mind, we actually did very little in Arequipa. Sometimes not even leaving our little neighbourhood. Like I said, we were happy just…being, I guess. We went to the local market and bought loads of fresh fruit and food and every morning had a beautiful fresh fruit salad with freshly squeezed OJ (Adams new speciality learnt from our host mum in Bolivia). We caught up on some exercise and constantly had our camera uploading to Skydrive (we were still uploading pics from Asia!)
The days we did decide to leave our nest, we got the local buses down the hill to the town centre and had a walk about the beautiful streets. Arequipa is a very beautiful city and it reminded us of Sucre in Bolivia quite a lot. This is maybe why we liked the place so much.
There is not really a lot to report on from Arequipa, but having a week to ourselves really makes you appreciate just ‘stopping’. Stopping from the buses, border crossings and constant unpack and repack routine. Stopping from just being on the move constantly. Not that you can complain about any of these things (they are amazing things to be able to do) But hopefully, any person/s in the same position can appreciate the feeling of just Stopping and just Being.
I enjoyed stopping with you. The photos are lovely.
Thank you so much, glad to have some company!