From Arequipa to Camana – All’s Well That Ends Well

We woke up in Arequipa and decided to spend the morning there before heading out. We walked from Hotel El Peral to the Plaza, where there are plenty of pigeons. Before feeding the pigeons, we made a brief stop in the Cathedral, which is a beautiful building. Arequipa – called both the “white city” and the “city of eternal spring” has interesting colonial architecture and great weather. We also visited another church on one corner of the Plaza, which was impressive as well, in addition to a casona built in 1738, where the Continental Bank is now housed. I would have visited more old buildings, but the kids quickly bored of the architectural tour.

Raymi, Soraya, and Tatiana near the Plaza de Armas, Arequipa

Cathedral. Plaza de Armas, Arequipa

Raymi, Tatiana, Soraya, Plaza de Armas, Arequipa

Feeding pigeons in the Plaza

Around 11am, my kids started asking for lunch. As lunch is not served until 12 noon, I tried to distract them by taking them for a walk. They complained about the walk, but eventually became interested in the leather handicrafts in a small shop in the El Fierro Market. Raymi bought herself a small box, and Tatiana got a cute keychain made out of a miniature leather book. After that, it was nearly noon, so we began to search for a restaurant.

Cathedral near plaza de armas, Arequipa

A demonstration we saw along the way to lunch in Arequipa

On the way, I found a small store, where I purchased water and some snacks to tide us over. When we finally got to the restaurant, we sat down at a table, and my youngest daughter, Raymi, asked if she could play with my iphone. I looked in my bag, and, realized that my wallet was no longer there. I couldn’t believe it. I had managed to lose my small purse, which contained my iphone, my bank card, and about $200 in cash. We retraced our steps to the small store where I had purchased the water, but they said they hadn’t seen it. I am not sure if it fell out of my hand in the store when I put the snacks in my bag or if someone removed it without my knowledge. I do know that I began to get stressed.

I had absolutely no money; the kids were hungry; and I didn’t even have my bank card. Luckily, I learned a long time ago to always travel with two ATM cards. I had another ATM card at the hotel. Unfortunately, I had just depleted that account, and it only had $25.00 in it. I could take out 50 soles, but that was not enough to pay the hotel, which I still had not paid for the previous night. I was lucky enough to have my laptop and an Internet connection at the hotel, so I messaged my family members to see who could deposit some money into my other bank account. My brother responded after a few minutes. He was at work, but was able to leave for a few minutes to deposit money into my account. Thank goodness for family!

All of this took a while, but, by 2:30pm, we were sitting again at the restaurant, and were able to have lunch. We had minestrone soup to start with; I had fried fish for my main course, and I was pleased to see that Tatiana and Soraya ate seco de cordero – lamb stew. I was not brave enough to try the lamb, but the twins seemed to enjoy it.

Losing my wallet was stressful. My philosophy on losing stuff is not to worry about it, as you can’t change the past, and worrying about it only makes it worse. But, sometimes it can be hard to live up to that. I keep telling myself it’s only money, and everything can be replaced. I also keep kicking myself for not being more careful, but there’s no point to that either, except for to learn to be more careful in the future. I need to go back to my old system, where I kept cash in a small bag under my shirt, and only carried valuables like my iphone when absolutely necessary. It is extra frustrating because I lost my iphone and cash in a very similar way just about a year ago in Barcelona. So, I should know better. Anyway, like I said, there is no need to continue to worry about it.

Because of everything that happened, we were not able to leave Arequipa until 3:45pm. This meant that our new destination was Camana – two and a half hours from Arequipa. Leaving at this time meant there were lots of trucks on the road, and that we had to drive quite a bit of the way in the dark fog, which was a bit nerve-wracking, for me at least. The kids, on the other hand, were entranced with the fog as they wanted to “touch the clouds.”

Goodbye, Arequipa. Goodbye, Misti

Dark fog along the road to the coast

The road from Arequipa to Camana is not particularly eventful or beautiful. You can see some snow-capped peaks when you first leave Arequipa, but after that it turns into flat desert, with the occasional oasis. At any rate, around 5:30pm, we could barely see the road, much less the scenery, due to the dense fog.

We made it to Camana at 6:30pm, and began to look for a hotel. We checked out a couple of places, and settled on Hostal El Sol, a comfortable and affordable place a few blocks from the plaza. The kids had dinner at the snack place just next to the hotel, which has hamburgers, hot dogs, and fries. Nando and I ate at a decent Chinese restaurant just off the plaza. My chicken soup with ginger was a nice way to end the day.

We are still 850 kilometers from Lima, and need to get there tomorrow, so the rest of our trip will be a bit rushed. The one thing we will try to squeeze in is sandboarding in Huachachina. We have to give the kids something to look forward to, after all.