El alemán en Perú: Guinea pigs and hot springs

Hey folks,

two wonderful days have passed, again. Time's just rushing by and I will be back in Germany soon. Nontheless, in good old Peru new experiences are as easy to find as taxis in Arequipa (if you don't know what that means, read the previous post!).

Yesterday was my second day in Arequipa. First, me and my co-traveller Andreas had a stroll through something like a "market quarter", were I took a few nice pictures. It's just so much fun to see the abundance of good salesman are trying to get people's attention with.

After that, we decided to get a better view on the city and, especially, on the surrounding mountains (the most famous is El Misti, the mysterious volcano at a 5.822 metres altitude). The viewpoint was located at a nice Plaza with yet another nice church (they are everywhere!).

As we were beginning to get tired of churches and monasteries we planned to visit a colonial mansion. It was quite interesting to get a glimpse at the life of a rich Spanish "don" as they were called back in the day. But we couldn't escape the clerical world a 100% as there were only pictures of religious topics hanging there.

In the afternoon we convinced ourselves to go have a look at another monastery. It's called La Recolletta and it's outside of the old town of Arequipa on the other side of the river (its name is Rio Chili). Its remote and a littlebit concealed location make it sort of a insider's tip and consequently there weren't too many tourists which was a refreshing experience, I can tell.

The monastery offers four nice cloisters and some exhibitions, one of them on animals of the Amazon which the missionaries encountered on their explorations. It's a pity I won't have enough time (and money) to go to the jungle and see these exotic species! The best part of the monastery, however, is the old library. It contains books dating back to the end of the 15th century, among those old bibles and one of the first editions of Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote (this guy fighting the windmills, perhaps you remember). These monks did a lot of reading!

The culinary highlight was saved for the evening: Cuy. You don't no what that might be? Well, probaby you've already heard its English name: Guinea Pig. Yes, its a delicacy in Peru, for thousand of years in fact (it hadn't been domestized like the chicken, it had always lived here). Those of you who have a guinea pig at home (I had one myself, its name was Fritzi) better close the eyes, the next pictures are explicit!

The taste was okay, not in any way disgusting as you might think. It didn't resemble the one of rabbit, though (everybody told me it would). It won't become one of my most favourite dishes, that's clear!

And today... I went to Colca Canyon, which happens to be the second deepest canyon in the world (two times deeper than the Grand Canyon, by the way). I took some nice pictures of the landscapes there (the animals are Alpakas).