After three weeks of hotel life we were curiously looking forward to our family stay in Arequipa. Staying with a family would be a great way to emmerse fully in the spanish language and experience the local life. We were counting on the school to allocate us to a nice family and our expectations were more than exceeded!
From the first evening we arrived we were welcomed with wide open arms and felt quickly part of the whole family, from the warm-hearted parents Paola and Tom to the super-friendly and funny sons Sebas and Nicolas.
We settled down in our room on the top floor of their three-storey house, next to the terrace with great views on the city and the dominating volcanoes. The 5800m Misti feels like just next door (pretty close for an active volcano…)
The next day turned out to be the birthday of the (now) 8-year old Nicolas and we got to know the whole family during his birthday party 🙂 Nico is a huge Star Wars fan who has seen all movies several times and loves running around in his Darth Vader mask.
We stay in a very pleasant part of Arequipa, just a nice 20 min walk to our Spanish school and can even reach the city center by walking. On the way one passes by many of the typical white houses, built from sillar (volcanic stone), giving Arequipa its name of “white city”.
The below building is not a museum – but the branch of a bank
Arequipa has a super dry climate – so far we had blue skies every day and no single drop of rain. Here people don’t have to bother about umbrellas and can enjoy more activities outside. Squash is plaid outdoors, restaurants survive without having a roof and we are enjoying our Spanish classes in the garden of the school.
The only small inconvenience comes from noisy animals. Rooster fights are a popular hobby in Arequipa and many keep their favorite pets at home. Our neighborhood seems to be very international with roosters kikeriki-ing their wake-up calls at every time of the day. They also get support from dozen of guard dogs who protect their house at the cost of their vocal cords.
We are having four hours of individual class every morning which feels pretty intense, so we spend many of our afternoons eating and relaxing, while doing homework and practicing. Some days we stroll through the nice city center, its churches and museums and the market, or we go for Salsa class which we recently started.
Arequipa is quite catholic and has a few old monasteries, some of which only opened their doors to the public for the first time a few years ago after being cut off by the outside for centuries (behind huge walls)
The biggest one, Santa Catalina, is like a hole district with a few streets and many houses.
We continue to explore the rich Peruvian cuisine. We love the fruits, like the Arequipenean Papaya (a smaller and sweeter variation), the Grenadia (also called “sweet maracuja”, similar to passion fruit), the guavas (again much softer and sweeter than what i have tasted elsewhere), the custard apple (here called chirimoya) and and and …
Yang Ke has found here favorite Ceviche place where she indulges once a week and she had her second guinea pig, this time fried (and flatted with a big stone) which we preferred to the previous oven-baked one….
I think we need a separate post for all the good food, speak you again soon 😉