Despite only being in Lima for just one full day, I was hopping on a plane again this morning.

I was leaving Lima but not really leaving Lima.

Let me explain.

Today was another crazy day trip.   Just like when I was in London and I visited Oslo for a few hours, today I was flying out this morning and returning to Lima late at night.

This time the destination wasn’t another country but the city of Arequipa about 1000km south.

Despite my flight only being at 10:30, I had to be up by 7:00 as not only did I have to be the airport before my flight but I also had an hour shuttle bus ride to the airport ahead of me.

I was out the door at 7:40 and took a very peaceful walk again through Kennedy Park.

At this time of the day the park was virtually empty and you could hear the birds chirping and see the cats gathering around.

I hadn’t noticed it yesterday, but there’s actually little cat hotels built in a couple places in the park.   Like I said, this is literally their home.

QuickLlama Airport Shuttle

There are a couple shuttle buses that take you to and from the airport.   There’s the Airport Express which is a full size bus and also QuickLlama which is a shuttle van that holds up to 8 people.

They both run pretty much hourly and charge s/20 ($7).

I decided to hop on the QuickLlama shuttle as I did the other night because I figured there’d be less people to pick up and the smaller van would be able to maneuver through the Lima traffic easier.

I don’t know if either of those things are true but I will say the traffic this morning was horrendous.   The same 40 minute trip I took from the airport the other night took twice as long going the other way.

To give you an idea at how brutal the traffic was, the airport is 25km away and it took 80 minutes.   You do the math.

No worries though as I had anticipated all that and I was still at the airport an hour before my flight.

Lima to Arequipa

Now, let’s talk about this crazy day trip.

Who flies 1000km each way to spend 6 hours in another city?

I know it isn’t the most ideal way to visit Arequipa but it was the only way to fit the city into my itinerary.   I just frankly didn’t have enough days to do it any other way.

The return flight cost me $100USD which I think was pretty reasonable and I feel like 6 hours was just enough time to see most of the city.

Anyway, the flight was scheduled to leave at 10:30 this morning.   I was only traveling with my daypack which meant I could take my sweet ass time boarding the flight since I didn’t have to fight for a spot in the overhead compartment.

We all boarded on time and then, for reasons unknown, we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes.

Just sat there.

And then at 11:15, we finally took off.

At 12:30 we had arrived in Arequipa.

Hola Arequipa

There is no transit that goes to the airport here in Arequipa which meant I had to take a taxi.

I had read that the taxis should cost s/15 ($5) to get into town so when I was quoted s/30 from a cabbie outside I immediately countered with s/20.

Naturally we settled in the middle at s/25 ($8).

Did I get ripped off?   Probably.

Was I gonna fight over $3?   Nope.   Nope I wasn’t.

Plaza de Yanahuara

Instead of going all the way into town, I asked my taxi driver to drop me off at the Plaza de Yanahuara.

You’re supposed to have a nice view of the city from here and it was only another 20 minute walk into the city.

The view was, well, how do I say this?

Underwhelming.

Yeah, while we were on a hill, the hill just wasn’t high enough to see anything.

Oh well, whatever.

Let’s walk into the city.

Now, stubborn me really hates putting on suntan lotion.   I just hate how it feels.

Today, though, the sun was out in full force and after walking a few blocks, I finally gave in and found a shady spot to just lather right there on the sidewalk.

Yup, I have no shame.

Lunchtime

I walked around a bit and settled on a place I had marked that served gluten free pizza.

Yup, after fighting against all the Americanized food the last few days, here I was eating pizza.

And yes, I know pizza is Italian, okay?

But you get the gist of what I’m saying.

Oh, and in case I didn’t feel the shame already of eating pizza in Peru, the place was called Las Gringas.

Gringos by the way is the slang for white foreigners.

I did order the most Peruvian pizza they had on offer.   I got a Pork and Berries pizza with pork, bacon, beans, cranberry, and rosemary.

While I was eating the pizza I got an email about my flight later tonight.

It was now delayed an hour so while that meant I wouldn’t be getting back to my hostel until midnight, at least I’d have an extra hour here in Arequipa.

Queso Helado

At 2:30 I was done lunch and headed out the door to meet up for a 3:00 walking tour of the city.

I was also keeping my eye out for Queso Helado which is cheese ice cream sold only here in Arequipa.

And wouldn’t you know it.   Literally on the next street corner was a little old lady selling Queso Helado from her little stand.

For s/3 ($1), I got a little cup of this scrumptious dessert.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d like it or not but, you know what, it was awesome.

I couldn’t even taste the cheese.

There’s a reason for that, by the way.

As I found out later on the walking tour, it’s only called cheese ice cream because it looks like they’re scooping out the ice cream from a block of cheese.   Yeah, there’s absolutely no cheese in the ice cream.   Just milk, coconut, and vanilla.

The funny thing is if my tour guide didn’t later tell me about this, I would have ignorantly been telling people for years about the amazing cheese ice cream I had in Arequipa.

Oh, and as I went down the street further I soon found out it wasn’t luck that I found someone selling Queso Helado as there were multiple people on pretty much every street corner selling the same thing.

Free Walking Tour

If you only have a few hours to see a city, the best way is by doing a walking tour.

So, despite just doing a walking tour yesterday, here I was again a day later signed up for one.

Our guide, Joan (pronounced John), was a super friendly smiling older man leading us around the city.

Despite using the phrase “my friends” a wee bit too much, he made the walking tour fun to be on.

Among our stops today were an art gallery and an alpha museum and, to his credit, I was actually invested in what he had to say about what we were looking at.

Now, for those of you know follow my blog, you’ll know that art galleries and museums are hard sells for me so if someone can get me invested in them, I’d say they’re doing a pretty damn good job.

So, let’s talk a little about what we saw on the tour today…

Casona Tristán de Pozo

Inside this building was the art gallery I was talking about.

Joan talked about some of the art on the walls and here are some tidbits I found interesting.

First of all, the white bricks of the buildings here in town are made from sillar which is white volcanic ash.

The architecture here in mostly Spanish and you won’t find any Incan buildings in town.   You see, the Incans preferred to live on the surrounding mountains where they’d be closer to the sun which they thought of as a God.

Also, I found out the Incans thought of black as the best color as black land was seen as more productive hence more sacred.

To that end, black alpacas were sacred to them and were offered up as sacrifices to the Gods as a path to the afterworld.

All that from looking at paintings.   Who woulda thought?

Biblioteca Mario Vargas Llosa

Here’s where I learned that many times Arequipa feels like their own country separate from Peru.

They’re not happy with the government and how Lima takes all the money from the rest of the country leaving them all in poverty while Lima prospers.

For instance, Puno is rich is minerals and has just recently found a cache of lithium.   However, they are living in abject poverty.

Oh, and there’s been talk for ages about opening another international airport in the most obvious place, Cusco.

It never happens though because Lima wants all the visitors to have to stop in Lima on their way to Cusco.   That way they can sell all the tours and bookings before people reach Cusco.

Sneaky, sneaky.

San Francisco Church

In Peru the matriarchy is more revered.   You’ll see paintings focused on the women.

You’ll also find something very interesting in the nearby San Francisco Church.

Prominently displayed at the very front is the Virgin Mary rather than Jesus who is off to the side.

The church along with many other buildings also has curved ceilings as kind of a preventative measure to earthquakes that have plagued this area over the decades.

Another interesting thing about the church is that, for intents and purposes, Catholicism was forced on the locals when the Spanish arrived.

The Incas worshipped the sun so the Spaniards added a big sun with Jesus’ initials emboldened on it right onto their statues of Jesus.

They also shaped the Virgin Mary to look like mountains with the sun shining above.

Sneaky, sneaky.

Victoria Chiceria

If you see a place with a red flag hanging off the building, it means the place is a picanteria where you can find foods made with peppers.

We stopped at one on our tour today which is also a chiceria.   A chiceria is a bar to drink chicha beer, the beer of the Incas.

Joan went through a little demonstration using a table just outside the entrance full of peppers, potatoes, and spices.

Then we headed inside for a free shot of chiceria and a look at their unique menu pairing items to different ages of history.

Little did I know that I’d be back here later for dinner.

Mundo Alpaca

The highlight of the tour was definately a stop a Mundo Alpaca.

Here we learned about alpacas and their cousins, the Llamas, the Guanacos, and the very rare and precious Vicuñas.

As Joan was talking about the different animals, I looked to my side and caught a glimpse of alpacas roaming in a nearby pen.

And it was feeding time!

We went outside to the alpacas and Joan gave us each a stalk of grass to feed the alpacas.

Literally eating right out of my hand.

Get the videos out.

Okay, so things I learned about these wonderful creatures.

The first shaving is always the best because the fur is so light which makes baby animals the most coveted.

Alpacas have 30 different natural colors and will only be shaved once a year.

The Vicuñas which only live in the mountains, however, are only shaved every 3 years and never on their belly.

They need that belly hair to protect them from the cold elements in the mountains.

Because of the scarcity and rarity of the Vicuñas, their fur goes for about $400 per kilo.

Of course there was a gift shop attached and I kind of perused the prices just to see how much this stuff cost.

A pair of socks was $25, a scarf was $65, and a sweater was a whopping $240.

But, hey, you pay for quality, right?

I mean, not me.   I wasn’t buying anything, but other people, ya know.

After our stop at Mundo Alpaca, we walked back into town and ended the tour.

It was 5:30, time for some dinner…

Dinner

Yup, I had a very stressful couple of hours here.

I had arranged to go to one of the top rated restaurants here in Arequipa.

They opened at 6:00 and I headed inside.   The server showed me to a table on the patio and gave me a menu.

I never saw a server again for another 15 minutes.

I mean, what the actual f*ck.

Now, if you know me, I really, really despise being ignored in a restaurant.

It just irks me the wrong way.

So, I walked out.

I walked through the streets of Arequipa looking for dinner and ended up back at Victoria Chiceria.

I ordered a Peruvian dish I had not yet tried, Rocoto Relleno.

It’s a stuffed pepper with beef and pork along with cheese and potato.

Delicious!

As I was eating, I got a message from a friend.

Cat care

When I travel, I find different neighbors and friends to look in on my cats for a week at a time just to feed them and change the litter.

I had a friend stop by my place tonight and they discovered no food, no water, and a cat litter unchanged for a couple of days.

My worst fear realized!

Seriously, the biggest thing I worry about when I travel is that my cats are taken care of.

Thankfully my friend stopped by and I was able to get another neighbor, Michael, to look in on my cats for my last week of travel.

That wasn’t even the most stressful part of the night, though!

When is my flight?

As I said earlier, I got an email notifying me of my delayed flight time.

The problem was, though, that when I checked the flight times on various websites online, it didn’t show any change at all.

So, what do I do?

I mean, I still have to go to the airport for the original time, right?

And somehow with the changing of restaurants and fervently messaging about the cats, I lost track of time.

I was only halfway through my meal when I noticed it was already 7:10.

My original flight time, which I still had to assume was the right time, was at 8:30.

I had to leave.

Now.

I quickly got the bill and luckily was able to find a taxi just down the street.

The taxi in took 20 minutes so I figured I’d take the same to go to the airport and I’d arrive around 7:30, a full hour before my flight.

Except according to Google my flight was now at 8:16.

And the taxi ride didn’t take 20 minutes.

The amount of stress I had at this point sitting helplessly in a taxi watching the minutes tick away is indescribable.

Finally, I arrived at the airport at 7:50, just 26 minutes until my 8:16 departure.

It’s the latest I’ve ever arrived for a flight.

I ran into the airport and found a huge line to get to security.

Thankfully I was able to show the guard the time on my boarding pass and was able to skip the first queue.

I walked up the stairs to find another long queue.

Again, I showed the guard my boarding pass however this time the guard pointed at the arrivals board on the wall.

My flight was not taking off until 9:20.

Just like my email had said.

Well, then.

All that stress for nothing.

I just don’t understand how no website, even the official airline website, updated their delayed departure time.

I was relieved but also kinda pissed.

Anyway…

First world problems?

After all that excitement, I just found a place to sit, and calm myself down.

At 9:20 we were on the flight and were soon on our way back to Lima.

A late night QuickLlama shuttle bus back to my hostel and I was home by midnight.

A crazy day trip and a bundle of stress.

Oh, what a day!