Our tactic when we look for a gas station to overnight in, is to pull up and ask if we can stay, so when they say yes we fill her up. This in the morning we tumble out of bed, slowly because our queen size is very comfortable on these brisk Peruvian mornings and I walk Rusty while Layne puts the kettle on.
There was a choice of two roads to Arequipa, the main one filled with slow moving trucks or the longer one by Google’s estimate but with hopefully faster moving cars so that’s the one we took. And yes there were some trucks but the wiggling highway was very scenic.
This arid no doubt but there are sands and dirt in various shades which give the sterility a strangely colorful look.
There’s a tunnel behind the hump.
And the inevitable downhill hairpins which I take in ms I’ll second gear with a tap of the brakes.
Layne has been a fan of the desert but she enjoyed these Peruvian drives for some reason.
In some areas white sand from a distance looked like a sprinkling of snow on the hillsides, winter in Arizona.
I don’t know who had the guns to shoot the sign but we saw no llamas on the road. The country director not appear hospitable to any mammals.
What desolate beauty and far enough from the ocean to not have any overcast skies anymore. Temperatures were about 75 but the direct sun felt much hotter.
We stopped to let Rusty out and I walked around with my camera a bit.
I think there are mining operations out there and from time to time we saw odd little huts in the dunes. This may not look it but much of this has been sold to Chinese and Canadian mining operations.
Anyway eventually we got the city. Arequipa was founded in 1540 and is known as the White City which apparently refers to Old Town and it’s whitewash. It’s Peru’s second city with more than a million inhabitants full of business industry and agriculture. We actually like the vibe on first acquaintance.
Southern Peru is definitely more wealthy and urbane than the desperate north, land of poverty and very shy reserved inhabitants. People here make eye contact and have small talk and normal social functions even with foreigners so we don’t feel so alien.
Traffic is busy but not aggressive and we have lots of traffic noise at our urban campground which noise doesn’t bother us in our insulated van.
Out first attempt at windshield sun protection in Ecuador was no good so we tried another version here in Arequipa as soon as we arrived. The idea was to get it installed and then park in the campground and walk and use taxis. The new tint is better but it’s not as good as the 3M we got in Panama. For now it will do but it helps in the high altitude sunlight in the Andes.
They cut it on the outside to measure and installed it inside.
Leaving the van parked for the duration seems a good idea.
Our campground is an oasis. La Mercedes Hostel which is quite popular with hotel travelers, but a bit controversial with overlanders.
A tourist map of the city, at most a fifteen minute walk from our GANNET2.
We overlanders have a wing of our own. There are 220 volt outlets along the wall and outlets in Peru take US plugs oddly, though we do have a converter box to put 110 volts into our onboard charger.
The building inbeteeen the Dutch truck and our Promaster barely visible is the toilet block with hot powerful showers and perfect cleanliness and mirrors and counter surfaces and everything you could want. All for $16 a night seems reasonable to me and quite few other reviewers but some people are difficult to please.
For those that care there is a skateboard park outside the walls of the campground but Rusty didn’t care do we did not hang out.
The neighborhood is pretty quiet and middle class so aside from the main road running right outside the campground entrance there isn’t much traffic.
They have 24 hour access too with security cameras watching the gate. I like this place and Layne likes it a lot.
There are no campground dogs do he rules the cross and he loves lounging on the grass in the sun. He gives it a big paws up.
It’s a lovely hotel too.
And after he has sunbathed he retreated to the shade for a while.
And now I have to find a book to read set in Peru. I’m looking for a Mario Vargas Llosa novel set in Peru to start me off, but most of his work seems much more internationally oriented on the whole. He was born here so it seems appropriate.
PS Thanks to Dan I’ve got a start.
2 comments:
The Dancer Upstairs by Nicolas Shakespear is good, as is Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon. If you want Llosa, try Death in the Andes. Sendera Luminosa had a big impact on Peruvian literature
Thanks for the list. Shakespeare has lots of interesting titles to his name but the South American novels naturally aren’t on US kindle. I’ll keep my eye out but I bought the Alarcon novel to start with. Thank you very much.
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