I was expecting a lot from Arequipa after hearing some great things from people on the gringo trail. And it did not disappoint. Arequipa is a beautiful, fun and charming city. I stayed for one week, the longest i’ve stayed in a city since Ayacucho, and i had a great time.
I met up with emma again which was great and needless to say we had a big night catching up! Then Emma headed off to Chile and I was back on my own. I decided, since it was such a nice town, that i would do a Spanish course. I must admit, i had ok Spanish before-hand but now i am much more confident at speaking and much better at listening and understanding, which is the hardest bit of the whole language! I enrolled on Monday and had 4 days of 4 hour lessons, so 16 hours of tuition in total. And one-on-one classes as well, which Lu thought was a horrible idea. And at first i was a little daunted because i don’t have a long attention span, but it worked out really well actually. On my time off from lessons, I went shopping, to the movies and visited the many sights on offer in the town. The monastery was my favourite, it was unbelievable. It spanned about 2 blocks of the city and was a beautiful old colonial building, one of the biggest in South America apparently. So i had a tour with some other English speakers and it took 2 hours to see everything, it was that big!
I didn’t go to Colca Canyon though, one of the biggest attractions in the Arequipa region, because my foot was finally getting better after being very very sore after the Machu Picchu trek! But nevertheless, a canyon is just a canyon, and i was over trekking for a while! Until Nepal again in Feb 2011! Got plenty of time to get re-enthused! So at the end of my sojourn in Arequipa, i was a little disappointed to be re-packing the bag and heading off again, although it was time. I had done what i needed and was ready to rock and roll.
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