Friday, August 2, 2013

De las sombras de las mantaƱas


About 16 hours from boarding a flight to Cusco. Arequipa, despite an unpleasant bacterial episode, has been good to me. This is a beautiful, friendly city.

I'm always a little lost, at first, in this kind of classical Spanish downtown. Everything begins looking the same. My first morning here I got lost on my run. The narrow streets and unbroken wall of buildings (edificios seems perfect here) obscure even nearby landmarks, and despite being laid out in almost a perfect grid, I seem to have a knack for finding the discontinuities.

Still, you get used to it. And every now and then, a street is just wide enough, and oriented just so, to give you a breathtaking view of the mountains hanging over it all.

I've had great company here. My host family, Rafael and Beatrice, were just as kind and gracious as you could ever imagine.


It was tremendous fun studying spanish with some fun folks from around the world.


Here's a picture from on top of the monastery next to where I'm staying:


And here's a bunny from the market, to round things out.