Arequipa

So I´ve got several updates...first of all, I´ve finally made some pretty good Peruvian friends. Aaron met two guys in his group for volunteering, Renzo and Diego, who are such awesome guys. We´ve all hung out several times, along with other cool people from Techo para mi país. Renzo reminds me soooo much of a friend back home. It´s so funny. It´s been fun actually going out with peruvians and having them watch out for us and meeting more and more friends that way.
Another thing about what I´ve been doing lately: last week was midterm week. I had two midterms on Monday which were waaaay easier than I had expected. After those two, I was pretty much done for the week.
On Wednesday, two friends of mine, Abbe and Jeremy, flew for the city of Arequipa (Aaron wasn´t able to come because of a midterm and he´s trying to save money). Arequipa is a city in southern Peru. It´s climate consists of a dry season and a rainy season. I definitely experienced the dry season. It was sunny all day when I was there and cold at night, but definitely dry all the time. I guess that´s probably because it´s kind of in the desert.
The city itself has about a million residents and has one of the most beautiful and unique downtown (centro) areas I´ve seen in a city in Peru. It felt a lot more laid back than Lima, and with a lot of tourists. The biggest attraction of this area is the famous Colca Canyon, which is several hours away by bus and the deepest canyon in the world. The Cruz del condor is a place where you may have the chance to see a condor. There are also several volcanoes close to the city that many people climb, as well as lots of adventure sports for backpackers.
Our first day in Arequipa, we napped and just hung out in our hostal and then wandered out to find a restaurant. We ate at a Mexican restaurant (funny, I know, while in Peru, but we were all craving it). I ate some delicious enchiladas and was entertained, as always, by Jeremy. Afterwards, we walked through the Plaza de Armas (main plaza) and checked out a retro style ice cream parlor.
The next day, we took a tour of Arequipa with this awesome old man named Telmo who was Jeremy´s taxi driver from the airport. We visited quite a few tourist sites around the city including the mansión del fundador (mansion of the founder) which was a pretty colonial building that people often rent out for weddings. We went to several miradores (lookouts) to see different views of the city and the volcanoes nearby. We also went to see a grain mill near the city, checked out the chocolate factory in which I bought some truffles for Aaron, and then Telmo took us to a travel agency to get us hooked up with a tour to the canyon.
We opted to leave Friday morning on a bus trip to the canyon, which included stops at several lookouts, a reserve where you can see vicuñas (a Peruvian wild animal, somewhat similar to a llama and somewhat similar to a deer). We spent the night in a town called Chivay that is a few hours away from the canyon by bus. The next day we left early to the canyon, only impeded slightly by a road blockage due to a mudslide. The canyon was amazing, although flooded with tourists, as was the entire canyon trip. We were able to see quite a few condors. Some even flew directly over my head, but I didn´t end up getting a great close up picture.
I, in general, didn´t particularly enjoy the canyon trip because of it´s overly touristy-ness. We were very overcharged and were given practically no freedom to do things on our own. I was crabby about it the whole time, but I was glad I saw the canyon and condors. This place is, by the way, why Simon & Garfunkel wrote the song "El condor pasa." Pretty cool, huh?
We left at the crack of dawn on Sunday for Lima. It was nice to spend the day with Aaron after being away for the weekend. We enjoyed the truffles I bought for him which were flavored like different kinds of drinks such as Irish coffee, pisco, cognac, etc. Delicious! Well, that´s about all for now. I will get pictures posted soon!