Arequipa

A lot of people have mentioned that A: I dont post pictures and B: My spelling and typing is crap. What I have to say to them is that A: My blog site is in spanish and you try figuring out how to post a picture with Spanish instructions and B: Most of the keyboards down here are so old that most of the letters have worn off and it makes things a bit difficult. SO there!

I spent my last few hours in Nazca in a tourism office with the lady who works there teaching me some spanish. She thinks Im crazy for being down here by myself. Imagine that? She was really nice and wanted to see my guide book. SHe has never been outside of peru. Another interesting fact, down here they wear their wedding rings on their right hand, not the left. When I arrived at the bus station there were lots of other travellers there. I met a brother and sister from Detroit who were a bit bitter about me being from edmonton (you know, the whole ´hockey´thing) I also ran into one of the guys who I flew on the plane with that morning in Nazca and we ended up having seats next to eachother on the bus (its assigned seating). So we´re supposed to leave at 945 and dont end up getting out of there till 11, something about thew fog? At this point Id been up since 7 and it wasnt a very good sleep at that (roosters) and hge is just rambling on and on. Like the whole bus is sleeping and just keeps talking to me about how he was unfairly fired from his job and how great Thailand was and...on and on. I added the occasional úh huh´ but really couldnt wait just to go to sleep. The bus smelled as good as it did for Keg Cup, and I think we all (or at least some of us) remember that. Sleeping on the bus was not that great and we arrived in Arequipa at 7 am.

Arequipa is apparently the most beautiful city in SOuth AMerica. I havent seent that much of it, but the place that Im staying is quite nice and walking around on the streets (im in a residental area) it seems to be wealthier than most of the cities Ive been to. The first day I literally did nothing. I was feeling really sick. I think the food/bad sleeps/roosters/always being on the go was catching up with me plus its a much higher altitude here. So I watched two World Cup games (Ecuador beat Costa Rica 3-nill and England beat Trinidad 2-nill, in case you were interested) then I slept, watched some movies, hung around on a hammock...basically nothing.

Today I slept in and then went white water rafting. It was so much fun. There were ten of us all together and I was with 4 other girls and our guide. You can imagine all the squealing and high pitched shreiks as we went down dips and smashed into rocks. But it was awesome. We went from level 1 to level 4 (the highest is 6) and at the end down a 2 meter drop. I had fun but I was freezing next time Ill be more prepared (oh there will be a next time, probably in cuzco). Anyways, back at the hostel now. Planning on checking out the town tommorow.