leaving cuzco

So after a three months rental of our apartment in Cuzco, it was time to leave. We really enjoyed having our own place to cook, relax, have dinner parties, and movie nights with friends. We loved having extra room to extend hospitality to family, friends and fellow travellers. Leaving the comforts of Cuzco meant we would be leaving favorite haunts, flavors and friends for the unknown. After moving out of the apartment we spent a week in Ollantaytambo, a small village still in the sacred valley, where Michael would wrap up the project he started with Awamaki, a local NGO. This was a beautiful sleepy village with big views and landscape.

We reunited with our friend Robin to travel to Arequipa. Happy to be traveling with our friend we loaded onto the bus, for the first long bus ride in a long, long time. After the 8 hour night ride we landed in Arequipa at the base of the volcan Misti. Arriving at the hostel we realized we had been relieved of our camera, netbook, and external hard drive.

Well, such is travel life...especially when you get to comfortable and complacent. It´s easy to forget all your travel security habits. Now moving through the continent a bit lighter, I will try to keep up the blogging, although living in our own apartment definitely slowed that process for me.

Arequipa is a beautiful city...so it was easy to help us move on from our loss. We immediately met new friends at the hostel and made plans to trek the Colca Canyon the next day. The archeture in this city is remarkably different and make me feel like i am in Morocco, or somewhere NOT in Peru. It´s known as the "white city" because it´s older buildings are made of a porous volcanic stone. We had landed in time for the evening candle lit tour of the Monestario de Santa Catalina....highly recommended!! Super magical and incredible!

We also did a day trip to la playa! It was so lovely to visit Mama Pacifica, we haden´t seen the ocean for months...or even longer to be IN it! And now the next time we see the ocean it will be the Atlantic! For here in Arequipa we decided to change our route from south to east. Hearing of all the fires and park closures in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego right now, we decided to test our flexibility with our trip and move east into Bolivia. We are "planing" to travel through Bolivia, and into northern Argentina, east again to Buenas Aires and maybe into Uruguay....who the hell knows at this point! Right now we go where the wind takes us!