Saying Goodbye to Peru, and Hello to visitors!

We rounded out our trip to Peru by slowing making our back from Cusco to Arequipa to Tacna to Arica to Santiago.  Our last day in Cusco, before taking the overnight bus back to Arequipa, we spent walking the streets and writing postcards.

One of the traditional dishes of Peru is "Cuy" which is basically a whole fried or bbq-ed Guinea Pig.  This restaurant had a giant mascot of a Chef Guinea Pig which I found to be incredibly wrong in so many ways.

These ninos dressed themselves up to make a buck or two... I found them cute so obviously paid them to take a picture with their llama.  

Our overnight bus trip from Cusco to Arequipa was followed immediately by another bus ride from Arequipa to Tacna.  This time we were treated to "The Horse Whisperer" starring a young Scar-Jo and Robert Redford dubbed in Spanish, but then our bus had not one but TWO flat tires, causing our driver to randomly bang on things for about an hour until I unwittingly looked out the window to see the shredded tire that had been on our bus as we weaved through the crossbacks.  We were soon on our way, and eventually made it back to Arica. 

Since our flight home was late in the afternoon, we spent our final day of vacation hanging out at the beach, perfecting the art of boogie-boarding and getting wicked sunburns.  My ability to put on sunscreen resulted in a sunburn on my feet that looked like I was wearing red socks that has lasted for 3 whole weeks.  My only souvenir from Arica.  

We returned home to Santiago where Blas had arrived the day before.  The following week, the rest of the Zenteno clan arrived, which was obviously a reason for an all day Sunday celebration with the entire family.  It was one of those days where you realize that event though there are terrible things in the world (The Newton shooting), there exists simultaneously so much awesome.  I guess our happiness is made better by our suffering and our suffering made worse because before we were happy.  (Philosophy....)

Blas holding a fish head.... 

A Makeshift basketball goal.

If you look closely, you can see my red sock.

Life is Precious.

Arica, Chile (Peru Trip Part One)

In proper Zenteno fashion, we decided at the last minute to take a 10 journey to Peru, specifically Machu Picchu, from Santiago.  I spent Tuesday researching specifics, and Michael spent Wednesday booking hostels (Spanish helpful) and we left Santiago the following Saturday morning. Yeah... that is how we roll.

I have to admit we had been discussing this trip for awhile, because the idea of being in South America without visiting one of the 7 wonders is absurd.  I contacted my well traveled friend Evelyn for some advice, which was super helpful, but since we waited until the last minute, we had some wide-awakenings.

For instance, we had originally planned to do the entire trip on buses--- but then we realized that a flight to Arica (the edge of Chile) took 3 hours, while a bus ride took 30, through the desert.  We intelligently decided to fly the first and last leg and skipped over the 30 hours of scenery that looked similar to this:

We spent the evening in Arica, a small beach town that used to belong to Peru. It has a certain amount of charm, with houses built into cliffs and beautiful ocean views. We walked down to the fisherman's warf where we saw one sea lion and many pelicans making themselves at home on the rocks.  We watched the sunset over the Pacific before heading into the "downtown" area where celebrations for Chile's "Teleton" were in full swing.  (Think Jerry Lewis... but Chilean).  Every motorcycle gang in Arica (which is apparently more than just 2) was gathered for some kind of ride to raise money.  We thought about ducking into the casino to win our bus ticket money for the next day until we saw that everyone entering was dressed to the nines, meaning our jeans and tshirts were NOT up to par.  We avoided that embarrassment by eating an empanada in the park before heading back to hang out at our hostel preparing for our border crossing the next morning.  

Arica in photos!  Next up... Tacna and Arequipa, Peru!