Well I know that I don’t have any pictures quite yet... (errr cause my sister hasn’t scanned them) but I thought that I might write the story and then add in the pictures later...
I left the my house early in the morning and didn’t arrive in Lima until around 11 P.M.… I might add in that I wasn’t in the only one who went on the trip… My two sisters, brother-in-law and my mom went. When we arrived in Lima, taxi drivers hounded us the minute we got out of customs. Luckily, my uncle, who is from Lima, was there. Also, my cousin and my other uncle were there (they came to Lima by bus which is a 14 hour ride!)
We left Lima around six or seven in the morning and arrived in Arequipa about an hour and half later. When we arrived in Arequipa, a couple of my cousins were there to help us with our bags. We stayed at my mom’s house. They had recently constructed the second floor and I thought it looked great! There’s a park right in front of the house but it’s closed on the weekdays (which I think is retarded! Lol) but they told me that the park was for the community and other communities would come and mess up the place… and mom was getting mad cause the kids would jump the fence to go play, but I jumped the fence before.. lol. Well on Sundays, we would have this family reunion and we would all go and play volleyball. We would have 2 teams; a guy team and a girl team and whoever won in the end had to buy the other team, a 2-liter pop :) hehe. Of course the woman won most of them :).
Apart from playing volleyball, we also did some sightseeing around town and the outskirts of town. In town, we tried out different restaurants. My favorite dish is ceviche , which is a fish dish, but it doesn’t taste anything like fish, but the best ceviche is in Lima so I didn’t have any in Arequipa, but I did have saltado, which happens to be a favorite among a couple of people here that like to come over when my mom makes it :P… once I wanted shrimp and I really thought that camerones were shrimp in spanish, so I got it and they gave me freakin lobster! Ugh! I thought lobster was langosta in spanish.. well shows how much I know… And it wasn’t very good at that!… Other food I had (or didn’t have) were rocoto relleno, which is a pepper that’s stuffed with like meat cheese and such, but since I don’t like peppers I never eat the pepper when I am ever served that… among things that I didn’t eat were cuyes, which are um, some kind of animal that looks like a HAMSTER!! Ah! Talk about loss of appetite!
One of my favorite sightseeing places is called El Monastario de Santa Catalina.It was/is this huge monastery where nuns live and it like a little city inside the walls.. Its beautiful!!!! I really don’t know how to explain it anymore than that, I guess you’ll just have to go and check it out yourself!!!

Other places that we went was this museum (I’ll have to find out what its called) that had 2 mummies, one of which was Juanita… MAN SHE BE OLD!!!
Lol I don’t know quite how old but, she OLD! We also went on a tour around town, and on the outskirts, where there was this place ( I also forgot the name) something, “molinos” where I think they would grind wheat or something .. lol that is about the only thing I know about that place , oh and the llama I fed!! Woo hoo! I actually got near the thing!!!!

My sisters and brother-in-law left about 3 weeks earlier than my mom and me did. But the day before they left, we went to this place called Chadacato. It’s kinda of like a park, but out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. There we had a family reunion. It was a lot of fun. I got to ride this horse!! YESSS!
We also played a few games which were fun, until I fell!!! OK, so we are playing this game called “Rey Manda” and well one person is the king and there are 2 groups and the king will ask for something and whichever teams gives it to him first gets a point. Like he’ll want a blue sock or something. We are playing this game on this sort of cliff/hill thing and the truck is at the bottom. So the king says that the first person who touches the truck at the bottom gets the point. So I’m like running as fast as I can down that hill and when I got to the bottom , I was running so fast that I lost control and I fell full force on the ground!!! And its no dainty ground either. It was pure rocks and dirt! So for the rest of the day I was too injured to do anything else, just limping around like a helpless puppy! Lol ! and for the next few days…..
Well my sisters and bro left at a bad time because when they left the festivities were beginning. I guess that they have a celebration for every district in the city, and that’s a lot of parties!! Lol ! But probably the biggest party was Independence Day, July 28th, I’m almost sure of that date!! Well, lucky me, every year there is a huge parade and everybody goes to see it, and I got to be in it. Of course I had no neat tricks and my costume wasn’t very “bling bling” but it was pretty fun!. I held up a side of a flag that represented the district that my mom grew up in. I was dressed in a traditional Arequipan outfit. Behind me were these guys called tucumanes, and they are SCARY!! Lol they are guys that dance around with these hideous masks and make people come and dance with them, and they scare little kids.. hey they scare me!!! They scare Amanda!! Lol… they are just flat out scary!! Lol, ok so they’re not THAT scary, but anyway…. I must have walked for like … I’d say 4 or 5 hours, but it was quite an exceptional experience! Oh the day before Independence Day, My cousin and I went downtown to see the fireworks in the plaza.
We were supposed to meet our other cousins/aunt there, but we couldn’t find them because there were so many people! We called them on the mic a few times ( there were bands and people singing) telling them to meet us behind the stage but no show. So we just stayed until they shot off the fireworks. OK so I’m a little paranoid. They are shooting these fireworks off this balcony and the people are below and I was just the bit skeptical about it so I was like, why don’t we just watch the fireworks under the balcony, just in case, oh you know so the fireworks wont like, FALL ON US!! Lol …. And my cousins like, no it wont happen.. so I’m like well ok then. So we stand there and low and behold it starts raining fireworks and my ass was under the balcony in a jiffy!!! It got really bad and I was so shocked that these really big chunks from the fireworks were just falling on people!!! AH!
One of the funest things I got to do while I was in Peru was to hang out with my cousins band, Nevada Fresca. They play at this restaurant, Sulu ( I think it should be Zulu!). They play all kinds of music, salsa, rock, ska-ish, traditional… I think they are REALLY GOOD!! They let me play on the drums are few times (which I know NOTHING about ) they let me play the on the keyboard a bit and they let me sing on the mic.. well kinda sing! I’m surprised they trust me that much!! Lol!! My cousin, Gino, plays the drums, my other cousin Mario plays the keyboard and my other cousin Jimmy, plays the bongos!! :) they’re all brothers!!! Overall I had a great time hanging out with them , and watching and filming them play!!! :)
Right now that is all I can remember.. when I can think of other things that have happened I’ll pencil em in, but for now, my brain wont let anything else out!!! I forgot to mention that I went to this really small town called Huatagua… it is literally in the middle of nowhere… lol and you have to ride a bus there… it is VERY scary riding the bus and very dangerous too because you have to go up in the mountains and your at the very edge and you could fall any minute and the bus sways back and forth, so its like AHHHHHHHH!!! Lol.. actually its not so funny because on the way you see all these crosses and you wonder.. hmmm I wonder what those are there for?? I thought that until I saw a cross with a picture of a BUS below it and im like OH SH---, just let me get through this!! Lol All the houses there are made of dirt… The last time I stayed there was back in ‘94 and I slept in one of the beds that were already there and I got bit ALL OVER! So this time I brought my tent and set it up in the coral! Lol
,.. It took me forever to put up!!! .. OK this town is DARK at night.. I’m not just saying a little dark, I mean dark as in no light except the light of the moon… And one time my cousin and I had to give this lady her keys back from the church, and it was dark… I was horrified!! Lol .. There are these creepy stories the people in the town tell, and you know I had heard them before and I thought that was just nonsense, but when you are right there in the dark, where no one can help you it is really scary…. In the tent I was scared too!!! And I would put on my headphones so I didn’t hear the dogs howling, because that’s a really bad sign!!! But this place is beautiful and a nice place to just go think and relax…. :)

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