After the rather chilly Chile we were keen to get some warmer weather, but also looking forward to meet again our dear family in Arequipa, indulge more in the great Peruvian food and finetune our Spanish skills!

Coming back to Arequipa felt like we never left and we quickly got back to our previous rhythm. Going for Spanisch class in the morning, working on our exam preparations in the afternoon and having nice gatherings with family and other guests in the evening.

As we are both on our last few actuarial papers, these are getting bigger and tougher, with a study volume of 1000 pages and more. We realized we were already lagging behind considerably (a typical study schedule for my exam allocates 4 months of preparation – studying every day of the week!) and decided to switch one gear higher. We therefore stayed a second week in Arequipa, this time without Spanish class. Anyway we were getting enough practice in the evenings

After that we moved on to Lima, complementing our studying with some further explorations of the capital’s artistic and historic districts and of its excellent restaurants.

We also opted for more unconventional accommodations this time. First staying in a tiny Airbnb room at a great location within popular Miraflores district, where we were the only ones and had the big living room all to ourselves.
Next we moved to the neighboring up-coming district Baranco, which in the olden days was a beach resort area for the upper class and stayed in one of the classy beach villas – turned hotel. The only reason we got it at a decent price is because the family run hotel only recently opened and was still far from being ready. Smaller maintenance was ongoing and most rooms were still lacking few basic amenities. But I just couldn’t resist, being intrigued by the beautifully restored rooms, with original wooden parquet, huge ceilings, original doors and windows and the also rest of the hotel full of nice antiques and decorations. The owner had already spent two full years restoring the building, with a lot of passion. Only a shame that, while single-glazing was adequate at begin of 20^th century, that was no longer true now with a busy street just next door. After one noisy night we moved from our romantic turret-room with sky-ceiling to another huge king-bed room.

After that we moved to a very quiet and cute house, which an ex-lawyer had turned into four bright and beautiful boutique rooms

Saying good-bye to Peru in style, we treated ourselves to a sumptuous dinner at an acclaimed restaurant, with an 8 resp. 11 course dinner of local flavors in unusual preparation. Like the gorgeous “cuy three ways” which came with cuy pate and crispy skin or something as simple as a variation of Amazonian tomatoes, with incredible flavors.

[See image gallery at 2young2simple.debraaf.eu]

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