Puno to Arequipa - Bus kya!

Checked out of the hotel and found Yobana (curse her!) hadn’t paid them – despite my paying Marleny in Cusco and giving the receipt to Yobana. A few frantic calls to them before Marleny sorted things out (Yobs was absconding) and off I went to the blue bus station to take a bus to Arequipa. First, we waited an hour for the 9:00am bus to fill up with passengers. Next, we leisurely trundled up to Juliaca – 46km north of Puno. Unfortunately, some people got off and the bus driver decided to wait till all the seats were taken. That meant one got to see life passing by in Juliaca on a Monday morning. Juliaca is an unlovely city – just like a lot of mid-sized Indian towns. Ugly 3-4 storey buildings, dust, bicycle rickshaws, no one stopping at traffic lights, a chaotic intersection that doubled as a bus terminal, dust, tiny shops fronting narrow roads selling everything from sofas to stainless steel utensils, dust…

5 hours and many pit stops later we crawled into Arequipa. Angie from Hostal Los Torres was waiting patiently for me (I’d booked a room online the previous evening and the hostal had said someone would be at the bus station to see me). All in all, everyone at the hostal was incredibly friendly and helpful. I wandered around Arequipa that evening and booked myself on a 2am tour the next day to the Colca Canyon. Yes, that’s 2am – so we get there in time to see the famed Andean Condor.

Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city, looks lovely. It is hemmed in by three volcanoes – of which El Misti ('The Gentleman' - Arequipa’s guardian volcano) has the classical conical shape. Of course it doesn’t seem to be much of a guardian – given the alarming frequency with which earthquakes hit Arequipa. Its estimated there’s around 100 volcanoes within a 200km radius of the city – so that makes for a lot of seismic and volcanic activity! Most of central Arequipa is built from sillar; a whitish stone that is found in these parts – and that too lends a pristine look to the place. Arequipa looks visibly richer than Lima. The people are local and not migrants from the countryside, there is a strong upper middle class and its attendant trappings (stylish clothes, a range of cuisines, organic food stores and the tell-tale sign of wealth – lots of vets and pet care shops). Arequipans are very proud of their city and 15^th Aug (the day it was founded more than 500 years ago) is celebrated with more gusto here than any other national festival.