Hola from Arequipa, Peru

Hello Everyone!Here´s another update of what my brother James and I have been up to over the past few days in South America if you´re interested.Our time in La Paz, Bolivia, the highest capital city in the world at almost 13,000 ft. above sea level I think, has now come and gone. We arrived Tuesday night and left Thursday afternoon heading back in to Peru. Our hotel is in an old colonial home and is very nice. Slept late Wednesday morning for a change (have been up at 5:00 am or earlier every day for the past week). Had a nice pizza for lunch, then walked around in the "Witch´s Market", one block from our hotel, where all sorts of strange objects and concoctions are for sale, including dried llamas to be placed in the foundations of new buildings for luck. Wednesday afternoon we took a city tour: saw a variety of neighborhoods including wealthy and not so wealthy, the main plaza and cathedral (apparently, in 2003, a shootout between the police and the army occurred here), the valley of the moon (strange rock formations due to erosion), and drove up to a panoramic vista of the entire city and distant snowcapped peaks. Then we went to a dinner folkloric show that evening. We left La Paz Thursday afternoon at 3:30 pm for Arequipa, Peru, and arrived there around 3:30 am Friday morning.The train ride monday was nice, and met some nice people from Italy who sat next to us. I was amazed at the amount of their Italian I could understand, even though I´ve never studied it - I guess Spanish and Italian have many similarities. We saw some interesting scenery and small villages as we rode through the Altiplano high in the Andes. The highest point the train passed through was around 14,500 ft. above sea level. Spent monday night in the railway hotel in Puno. Tuesday morning we were picked up early for our transit tour to La Paz. Throughout the day we saw many interesting sights on and around Lake Titicaca, the world´s highest navigable lake at 12,500 ft. Walking across the Peru/Bolivia border was easy. The town of Copacabana, Bolivia, where we got aboard the catamaran to go to the Sun Island and cross the lake, is interesting and picturesque. Bolivia is gearing up for their independence day celebrations, which is on August 6 (Peru´s is on July 28 - and we saw a lot of preparations for that, although we were traveling back from the jungle on the actual day). Anyway, the sun island is in a microclimate and has gardens with all sorts of flowers, plants, and vegetables. Got to interact with some llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas, as well as participate in some spiritual ceremony involving offerings to "Pachamama" or "Mother Earth". The whole tour was very interesting and we learned a lot. We also met some nice people traveling with us from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a mother and son from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a couple from Birmingham (Birmingham, England, that is). We exchanged stories about each of our respective Birminghams. The guide, Gloria, from La Paz, was really intersting and funny as well.At any rate, James and I arrived in Arequipa around 3:30 am this morning. Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, with around 1.5 million. The hotel is quite nice (someone from the hotel met us at the bus station early in the morning). Once we were up and about today, one of the young hotel workers walked with us to the main plaza of the city, and, while sitting on the steps leading up to the cathedral, we helped him with some English homework he is working on for his English class, which he was going to this afternoon. He then helped us book a tour to the Colca Canyon: We get picked up from the hotel at 2:00 am Saturday morning, visit the Colca Canyon (one of the deepest in the world), see the giant condors, see some villages, and return to Arequipa between 5:00-6:00 pm. Then, we have bus tickets to Lima - the bus departs around 9:00 pm saturday night, and arrives Lima sometime the next day. We´ll stay at the youth hostel in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima Sunday night. Monday night, we head to the Lima airport for a flight to Mexico City just after midnight Tuesday morning.After all the bookings, we ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant, then visited a large monastery with many brightly painted, winding passages and rooms. There is a nice view of the city, the snowcapped mountains, and the towering volcano "El Misti" from a lookout point on top of one of the buildings. Then we looked around in the main cathedral. After that had some fruit juice and bread, now are here checking email. I think we´ll look for dinner soon, then head back to the hotel to get some rest before our extremely early departure (2:00 am) to the Colca Canyon. The adventure continues!I hope you all have a great weekend. Take Care!