Arequipa's Monastary & finding transportation to Cusco!

Sunday 24 Feb, 2008

Today was a sleep-in day! Well a little bit anyway. Chris got up early and left to take photos while Gloria and I took our time. Breakfast was good... eggs with ham, pineapple juice, rolls and coffee. I decided to do a few macro photos, so I walked around the hostel, which was very pretty with lots of flowers I have never seen. After our easy morning, Gloria and I had to rush a bit to meet Chris at the Plaza de Armas.

We wanted to get our tickets to Cusco ASAP, so we headed straight to the AeroCondor office. They didn't have ANYTHING available! (and LAN was closed that day.) Wow! We asked if there was a place we could check about a bus ticket, and the lady directed us to a tour-info place across the street. It took a while of checking bus lines for availability but we finally chose one that leaves at 8:30pm tonight! It's an overnight, straight-thru ride and arrives in Cusco at 6:30am (whoa, that's 10 hours!) The only thing that sucked was... we had to pay in cash!! I don't remember the price (much cheaper than a plane ticket) or how much each of us put in... but we were pretty much out of cash after that transaction!

By now it was after 1pm, and Gloria and I wanted to go to the Convent in Arequipa, which closes at 4pm. But first we needed some more cash. We headed down the street towards the bank with the ATM and, as usual, Chris was lagging behind taking photos. We didn't wait for him and when we got to the bank Gloria realized she didn't have her ATM card with her. I withdrew S/. 100.00 and gave 50 to Gloria so she would have some cash for the day. We headed back towards Plaza de Armas, looking all over for Chris, but he was no where to be found.

We chose to go to the Monasterio De Santa Catalina without him and figured we'd find him later on somewhere. The cost to get in was S/. 30.00. The convent was very beautiful with lots of rich history. One interesting fact: it was first opened to the public in 1970 after 391 years of seclusion!! Somewhere along the way we met a gringo named Dave who was very nice and we ended up walking around with him. He's from Connecticut and 23 years old. He's been traveling in Ecuador and now Peru for over a month, all by himself! We wandered through the MAZE that was the convent and at one point we stopped for some warm drinks in the sprinkling rain at El Café Del Monasterio. I got another coffee, Gloria got hot chocolate and Dave got some tea. I also got something called a Crepe del Claustro, but it looked more like a quiche. It tasted good, but later on I didn't feel so well. Not sure if it was the food or the altitude. We were at the convent for about 2 hours and eventually told Dave we had to get going.

The bus tickets were supposed to be ready to pick up at 5:00pm and we were hoping to run in to Chris. We got to the ticket agency by 5:30, but the man there said Chris had picked them up an hour prior! We weren't sure what to do so we decided to head back to the hostel and see if Chris was there. About half-way back a taxi comes honking more than usual and it's Chris! He had just been at the hostel to pick up his tripod. We all got in with him and headed back to Plaza de Armas... it was about sunset time. At the Plaza we ran into Dave again and he joined us going to a restaurant for some empanadas. The three of them ate but I wasn't hungry. The sky turned purple and Chris ran off to take more photos. Gloria and I took a few group photos with Dave and then we went back into the plaza to try to find Chris. We thought we saw him up at the restaurant with the awesome view, so we headed up all the stairs. He was no where to be found and we were out of time. So we said Goodbye and Good Travels to Dave and walked quickly back to the hostel (no more taxis who don't know where to go!)

We had to pack up, check out and catch a taxi to the bus station very quickly!! On the way out the hostel one of the ladies gave me a pill for altitude sickness. We got in our taxi and had to take a detour because the road he wanted was blocked off due to the rain (probably a mudslide?!) Many of the roads we took were dirt and under construction. At one point we drove over some very bumpy/rocky areas and we weren't sure if we'd make it. At the bus station we had to pay another tax. We traveled on the Carhuamayo buslines, and the cost of the trip was S/. 60.00. They got our luggage and we got into the large 2-level bus. We had large reclining seats on the bottom. We got cozy for the 10-hour bus ride and one crappy thing I forgot was I still had my contacts in! I couldn't do anything about it and off we headed towards Cuzco on a long, bumpy, poop-less bus ride! End of day!

[11:44pm 25/02/08] - date & time of journal entry