Arequipa Time!

When we got back to Arequipa we had all these plans of doing things... you know what we did? We went to burger chulls. Basically the Bagger Dave’s is Arequipa. While the burger was definitely more burger than Bembos, it still was weird. The fries were good. I’m not sure they got such high reviews on Trip Advisor. I think maybe because they are the only burger place around where they let you customize? I did appreciate that the workers wore gloves when serving and prepping food. I have not seen that yet in South America.

We ate and then walked back to Casa Arequipa. We needed to get some sleep because we had one full day and we wanted to make the most of it.

We woke up early and enjoyed a delicious breakfast provided by Casa Arequipa. Ok. I don’t eat bread really but they served this delicious bread that was like a hard baguette on the outside and inside was like a croissant. Crazy good. Super dangerous. You could have like a basket of them.

Agyer brskdast we hurried to our meeting point to join a free walking tour. It was nice because we met at the square of Las Gringas. We walked around a bit and listened to the guide. She talked a lot about the Spanish conquest and the architecture. It was interesting. When we got to Plaza de Armas we decided to break off. We tipped her and said adios.

We wanted to make sure we saw the church before mass, Juanita and the monestaey. There big areas of interest in Arequipa. Before we started are adventure we grabbed some lunch. We had dinner reservations at Zig Zag so we didn’t want a super fancy place. I was fine with a McDonald’s...but my travel companion wanted more. So guess what? We ended up at La Lucha! lol

she got the chicken sandwich which honestly don’t get. It’s fine but a bit dry and lacks flavor. I got the sandwich I was going to get before. Basically it’s roasted pork but I had them add an onion salad and a cheese. No one adjusts food in Peru but I’m convinced I made that sandiwxh spectacular. It was delicious.

After lunch we found the monestaey. We were afraid they wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t have anything covering our legs but they said yes. The monestaey wa cool. It was interesting to see how the nuns lived. They said it was a town within a town and you could totally feel that. Waking around if felt like you were so secluded.

​After the monestaey we had some more time before dinner that we wanted to find Juanita the mummy. Ok. It was super creepy and the story is incredibly sad. Basically the Incas took this young girl to mount misty and sacrificed her. I’m pretty sure other things happened to her too... the findings showed that she died by someone bashing something into her skull. Poor girl. Now her body is being showcased at some museum. It was a little disturbing.

Now that we had all of that... we weee ready for dinner! We went back to the hotel to freshen up and back out. We swung by then church to see if we could get in. To our surprise we could! They let people in right before mass. So we were able to walk around and see the beautiful church. Take a look at some of the intricate artwork.

We finished up and wandered over to zig zag. I don’t really care if it’s a tourist restaurant. It was damn good. That lamb tho. I wish I would have gotten just lamb. Pass on the alpaca. It was too lean and dry. The beef was good. Like REAL beef. What a treat! The trout was so, so goood. I basically started liking trout on this trip. I’ll have to buy some to make it at home.

The whole meal was just really a solid meal. I’m glad that our friend at Arequipa silvana recommende did to us. I think it’s cool how you can get multiple meats and get it by the grams so you can sample them. A nice way to taste different meats.

Of course before going back to the hotel for the evening we need to go to the muses del pisco... because why not? Actually their menu sounded pretty good too. They had tapas and I <3 tapas. :)

my friend and I shared a pisco sour and called it a night. This was the last night in Arequipa. My hope is it’s not my last but it very well may be. It’s so fascinating to me that people live in a town surrounded by volcanoes. At any moment Mt Misty could erupt and destroy the entire city. As my friend Marcelino would say... “It’s crraaaaazzzy!”

Breakfast was a sad one. The last breakfast at Casa Arequipa. We ate. Talked to Silvana and started packing up for our route back to Lima. We both weee so glad we can do Arequipa. A cute friendly little town. We tipped our cleaning lady and Silvana. She was so helpful to us. Extremely nice staff at Casa Arequipa. We will miss you all. We got into a taxi and hugged and said goodbye to Silvana.

Ready for Lima and Barranco!