Ailsa and Andy’s Travels: Day 11 Arequipa & Blethers in the Square

It was a very early start today - 5.30am check out. We caught a plane for the short flight to Arequipa - Peru’s second biggest city. The cabin crew were very efficient and served our complimentary bottle of water, hot drink and snack before the plane had even taken off! Thankfully, this was a dog free flight, phew!

Arequipa is beautiful and another place of grandiose town squares, white stone buildings and big front doors! We are staying in a lovely old building which at one time was the Mint where they made the old Peruvian coins. It has vaulted ceilings galore.

We had a mooch around the old city which is very beautiful and we sat on one of the many benches around the square to take it all in. A local lady came and sat next to us and blethered away in Spanish, asking us questions about where we had been so far. She was a gem, shooing away people trying to sell things and she gave a man collecting for a so-called charity a real fly in his ear! She told us all about her holidays to Canada and Cancun. Thank goodness Andy was quite good at getting the jist of what she was chatting about as I was pretty hopeless. Note to self…I must subscribe to Dua lingo for future foreign visits!

We made our way up to the main shopping street, which to be honest, could have been a busy shopping street anywhere. It was pedestrianised with many familiar shops on it. At the top of the street was another little square with a few trees and benches. The benches were occupied by people with cats! They had set up small enclosures and in each enclosure were kittens - I think this must be where people come to sell kittens when they have them.

Andy was very happy as he managed to find the post office (a necessity for each city we visit so he can send postcards home).

Point to note: so far we have seen many Peruvian people, of all ages and not one of them, ever, has any grey hair. When we were talking to the Peruvian lady who told us all about how they dye their wool, she did tell us that they use a natural shampoo which they make from the root of a plant to wash their hair, and this keeps their hair dark. Andy asked her if it would work on grey hair, at which point she looked at me and said it was good, but it didn’t work miracles! 😆

Although we are moving to a new place every 2 or 3 days, we have managed to have a little routine, which generally comprises of being out in the day time, coming home late afternoon so Andy can have a quick snooze and I can write the blog before I forget what we’ve done, then before dinner, we have a drink and a game of crib. Crib has always been a standing joke on our holidays….we only ever play it on holiday and from one holiday to the next I always forget how to play it and have to be retaught. I think after this epic adventure I may manage to remember the rules. So far, the scores are on day 11: 8 games to Andy and 3 games to me, but, I’m catching him up!