Travel Tuesday number two: Arequipa, Peru (2009)

This week, I’m showcasing Arequipa, Peru, in my Travel Tuesday feature.

Peru is a mad country. For a start, the people are… different. Lovely, but different. They’re loud. Some of them try to rip you off. All of them shout at each other. It’s all endearing in a way, though.

I went to Spain in 2007 and didn’t love the people, so when I was planning a trip to South America, I thought for some reason that they’d be quite similar – as though people are all the same just because they speak the same language.

I was so wrong. Looking back I can hardly believe that I was so bigoted in my mindset, but it was largely inexperience, too. In Spain, I tried so hard to speak the language and was met with looks of indifference. In Peru, waiters laughed at our strange English structuring of Spanish sentences (una mas cerveza, por favor [instead of the correct una cerveza mas] – one more beer, please) but they also helped us to learn new words. Cuanto cuesta. El bano. Esa cabra es muy lindo. Vamos!

Arequipa was the fourth or fifth city that we visited in Peru. The traveling party consisted of me, my fiance at the time, and six of our friends. We traveled as part of a tour, which was something I’d never done before, and probably won’t do again, but it was nice to be able to travel without stressing out over missing trains or not being able to find a room for the night.

At almost 2.5km above sea level, the air in Arequipa is thing and the soft drink and beer was not at all fizzy. Volcanos surround the city, which makes for pretty cool scenery:

[Excuse the crappy photo - it was sunset. You need to look at the volcano in the centre of the picture. Mad!]

At the Convento de Santa Catalina, I re-discovered a penchant for old doorways and windows.

No kidding: I like taking photographs of doors. Just like Steven Black in 30 Rock. Unlike Steven, I don’t take part in Vietnam war re-enactments or write extensively about Star Wars. (I searched high and low for a clip of that scene to make my point waaaayyy better but alas, could not find one. It’s the Source Awards episode if you’re in possession of your own copies of the show.) I am probably the most exciting person you know.

One of the problems with traveling on a tour is that you just don’t get time to see very much. We slept, we ate, we drank, and we visited a couple of the local sites, but I don’t really feel like I managed to get a good feel for the city.

I think the above might’ve been the first time I tried alpaca or llama. I remember it being very good, either way. Like everywhere in Peru, the food was cheap and tasty. They eat animals that much of the world would never dream of eating, like guinea pig, llama, and camel. It became repetitive at times, but I think that was largely because our tour director lead us to similar cafes and restaurants in each city – places at which he received a free meal, generally.

Arequipa is old and hilly; situated so far above the ocean, the air is already thin and difficult to breathe. Having to trudge up hills and staircases to find restaurants and accommodation felt near impossible at times, but the mountainnessnessness did afford wonderful scenery, and there were many other things to see: convents, the ubiquitous Plaza de Armas, and (being South America), a church or two, thrown in for good measure.

As a traveler, having a list of places that you need to revisit can be kind of frustrating. There is so much to see in this world and a relatively short time to do it, so feeling like you should visit a place again just so you can be sure that you like it can be a bit annoying.

I want to go back to lots of places that I’ve been, just because they were awesome, or because I know I didn’t get the point the first time around. Arequipa, though, is one of those places that I will probably not miss if I never visit there again, and that kind of saddens me. I think my Arequipa apathy is somewhat caused by the fact that I did visit in on a tour in which my freedom to explore was limited; I also didn’t enjoy traveling in such a big group, and it is altogether possible that my patience was wearing thin by this stage.

I like to leave having a strong feeling about a city: I want to love it and lament the fact that I have to leave, or I want to hate it, because that gives me something to build on. Arequipa? I’m kind of indifferent towards it. It was pretty, we ate some good food, and sure, I enjoyed it, but I don’t really feel positive or negative about it.

I guess I will just have to go back.

This post is part of a series showcasing just a handful the thousands of photos and stories that I have collected on my travels around the globe. All posts will be easily accessible via the button on the side of the blog. My photos are far from professional – sometimes I use a point & shoot, sometimes a dSLR, and other times an iPhone – but they tell my stories, and I hope you enjoy them.