We are now sitting in front of our gate at the airport of Arequipa, two hours in advance for our flight to the Easter Island, with stopovers in Lima and Santiago di Chile.
The last two days were again very intense… After the Colca Canyon trekking, arriving in Arequipa, we had one mission: do our laundry! Our guide had mentioned a street with plenty of cheap "lavandarias" close to our hotel. We therefore left on an expedition with a huge bag full dirty socks, underwears and t-shirts to clean. After a good hour of wondering across the city and entering some pretty shady neighborhoods, we still hadn't found what we were looking for and finally decided to return to the hotel… to discover that they were offering express laundry service at 2 euro / kilo!
The evening was spent drinking the local aperitif "pisco sours" and again visiting our favorite Peruvian Chef, Gaston from Chicha: the next day was going to be very sportive, so we had to be ready.
Again, François' blackberry woke us up at 6h00: this time to leave on a bike tour across the Salinas y Aguada Bianca National Park. After two and a half hours of bumpy roads, our van dropped us (and our bikes) off at the salt lake at 4,400 meters and 5°C outside… The landscape was amazing, with a beautiful contrast of colors: the white salt, the red and brown mountains, the blues of the lake and the sky, and the pink of the hundreds of flamingo's surrounding us! It was enough to motivate us for our ride: 12 km uphill and 28 km downhill, of course all of this along rocky and muddy dirt-paths. Alessia is not sure what she found worse, the uphill part against the cold wind, or the downhill with more than questionable brakes! Arriving in the last small village at 3,000 meters, she swore she would never do such a crazy thing again… You should have seen her reaction when finally resting in the van, getting back to Arequipa, she found out that the chocolate bar she had saved for after the hard effort was completely melted and uneatable! François on the over hand, enjoyed the ride like a little boy… probably because the brakes of his BIANCHI Italian bike were working better, "of course the best"!
After such an effort and eight days of running-around across Peru, we decided to take it lazy and chill-out on the sunny terraces of Arequipa. The only cultural visit we did was at the Santa Catalina Monastero, part of the "Leading Small Monastery of the World" chain. During colonial times, extremely wealthy Spaniards would send their second daughters to this place. In order to ensure the same lifestyle as they had been used to, they would live in very well decorated four-room "cells" with terraces and private kitchens and bathrooms, use Delft or Limoges porcelain and, last but not least, have a bunch of servants at their disposal. The Monastery even had a large indoor pool and pizza ovens everywhere… What a hard life in seclusion!
To close this beautiful trip in Peru, we would like to share with you some final anecdotes:
· We changed seven times hotels in nine days. Every time we were checking-in, François' first question was: "is there Wifi in the room?", and Alessia's was: "what time is breakfast?"
· Alessia did some business on Lake Titicaca: she managed to barter some chocolate for a bracelet from a four-year-old girl. She lost the bracelet the day after however… but anyway the chocolate was local and not very good (nothing compared to Belgian quality)
· The most popular soda in Peru is not Coke or Pepsi, but "INCA Cola". François tried this phosphoresant yellow / bubblegum-tasting drink on the flight from Lima to Cusco, and has kept off from any type of soda since then!
Well done guys!
ReplyDeletesending you chocolate kisses,
Mom & Dad