We once again woke up early and got cleaned up and packed
because that was the only night we were spending in Yanque. We had a brief breakfast at the hotel
restaurant (which was included) and then hung around watching the animals until
the bus came to pick us up. The bus
brought us to Yanque’s Plaza de Armas and we did a bit of local tourism in
Yanque where we watched local children dance and looked at all the stall
selling stuff on the square. After a few
minutes we all got on the bus and were brought to another small town nearby
called Maca where we visited the town and the church and even had our picture
taken with animals. During this tour we
met a Canadian couple from Nova Scotia and I talked hockey for a bit. Mike was
a Bruins fan. His point being it is the nearest NHL city to Nova Scotia and we
don’t speak French.
The tour continued on to the Colca Canyon where the primary
target was to see condors flying. We had a few different stops along the way.
Getting there they gave us a bathroom break and then we arrived at the canyon
where we waited for about an hour and a half or so before we started to see a
few condors flying around. As we had
only seen a couple at the scenic point we started on our way back towards
Chivay. However on the way we got out of
the bus at least once because we spotted more along the way and the guide
stopped and let us get out and take more pictures. We were able to get some really good ones.
Aside from those stops we had a couple more scenic stops. In one Daniela bought
a couple of cups of frozen sancayo ice cream. Sancayo is a fruit from a cactus
in the region. It is tart like a lemon and filled with lots of black seeds. The
kind without milk started to look like saliva as it melted but the one with
milk was more like ice cream. I liked
the one with milk more. So did Daniela. With
the scenic stops and one more bano break we were able to get to a local
restaurant near Chivay.
It was a buffet restaurant. I took more than I ate. We split
a beer. It had a variety of foods but I was still not feeling very hungry
possibly from being sick or from the altitude.
After lunch we redistributed passengers and then took a ride on to
Arequipa. There was little guide talk on this about 3 hour ride and we took
turns falling asleep some. When the bus arrived in Arequipa it dropped most of
the passengers off at their hotels if they wanted or at the Plaza de
Armas. Before we got out we made a deal
with the Canadians, the couple with the Japanese and the guy from New York to
meet at 11pm right at the Christmas tree in front of the Cathedral.
We got settled into the hotel room and immediately went on
our way downtown to meet Danielas cousin Marita at her Ice Palace ice cream
shop. It was on the way to the Plaza de
Armas from the hotel. She gave us some
ice cream to try from the shop. Her family has four Ice Palace shops around
Arequipa. I had coffee and coconut and
Daniela had some fruit flavors. Marita
came out with us to help us shop for New Year’s Eve. Daniela needed some
accessories and we needed the Peruvian traditional yellow underwear for each of
us. We walked around all over Arequipa
it felt because her cousin knew all the places to shop for what we needed. When we were done with that we went back to
the hotel and got cleaned up and dressed up for the evening.
First we were invited to her Aunt and Uncle’s home to have
dinner. We walked down to meet her cousin and then we took a taxi to their
home. They were already dancing when we
got there. There were several friends and relatives. We of course started dancing right away and
they served a few different drinks in the course of the night. I think there
was some Bailey’s, followed by champagne and then when we had dinner,
wine. One of the guests worked for Es
Secur as a radiologist and was familiar with Hologic’s products which was kind
of neat. We had our plans to meet the people from the tour at 11 but the night
was going by pretty fast and they insisted we eat with them so we did and ended
up leaving a bit late. They served two
types of salad, apple sauce, chicharon, some rice and potatoes. I took a bit of everything except too large a
chunk of the pork. I ate most all of it
except for the pork I ate all the meat and left the fatty stuff behind. There was a lot of it. We left I think around 11:30 to meet people
we were supposed to find at 11. They got
us a taxi and we took it to the main square.
At the main square, near the Christmas tree, we did find the
two Canadians and the guy from New York. They were already a couple to a few
beers into the night and of course by then the fireworks had already started.
We watched all the local people shoot off their fireworks. There were
professional grade bombs going off but they were just being set off in the
crowd sort of randomly. Of course some
openings like mosh pits had formed and people were mostly staying out of those
points. There were a couple that set off really low and even one I think that
exploded just off the ground. I know I saw an ambulance waiting in the square
but as much as I teach Daniela I am not sure any did actually get hurt. It is
just an assumption based on all the chaos.
After the new year turned and everyone wished each other Feliz Ano we
stayed for a little while longer watching until a dog that was going nuts by
the fireworks kind of made us decide it was best to get out. There was a point
he tried to attack some exploding firecrackers.
We walked out of the square to Calle San Francisco and
eventually found a bar/club called Carusso on the second floor of a small plaza
on the street and paid 15 soles each to get in. They said they had no tables
left to sit at but the goal was dancing anyway.
So we bought some beers and started dancing. They did a DJ mix of
Spanish and American music. After a couple of hours the other 3 foreigners had
their fill of dancing and decided to leave. We escorted them out and continued
on dancing for probably another hour before deciding to leave ourselves.
Daniela was wearing new shoes and her feet were killing her. We took a taxi to
the hotel and crashed for the night. We had asked the hotel if we could switch
rooms from the first because the shower didn’t function great and the lack of
any light blocking curtains made the room bright at 5am. When we got back to
the hotel they moved us down a floor to a room that was almost identical except
it had a sheltered window which meant not as much light could get in.
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