Next stop: Arequipa for some Spanish lessons. We boarded our overnight bus and were no sooner seated than out hostess handed us each a bingo card and promised a free return trip to Cusco for the winner! Fortunately neither of us won. It may have messed up our travel plans a little.









We missed the first few numbers whilst we tuned our ears in, but we soon got into the swing of it and it was very good practice for our Spanish number skills! We were a little disappointed not to have the English 'two fat ladies 88' style, but that may have made it a little tricky anyhow. One game of bingo, a quick sandwich and then it was lights out for the night, arriving in Arequipa at 6am.

The usual explanation of Arequipa's nickname is the very pale volcanic stone, known locally as silla, that has been used for so many of its buildings. Many of these date back to early colonial times but the tradition of using this pock-marked stone continues. Throughout the town there are many of these substantial white buildings, often with impresively carved and decorated doorways. However, Our Spanish teacher Mabel advanced an alternate theory; the climate and surroundings made this town very appealing to european settlers so the proportion of Spanish origin folk is considerably higher than other Peruvian cities, hence the White City.

The climate may be pretty good but the city's disadvantage is that it is surrounded by volcanoes and sits within an active earthquake zone, which has made itself felt many times in the city's history. Thus although many buidlings are quite old, most have had substantial rebuilding over time. The perfect cone of El Misti, the closest active volcano, dominates the skyline of the city as it rises to a height of 5800m and is only 17km from the town.

It last showed minor signs of activity in 2001 when an earthquake hit the town but is currently slumbering. The proximity to high mountains was no doubt the reason why, to our surprise, we actually spotted a condor wheeling in the sky above the town! Sadly, no camera handy to record the sight.

Our home here in Arequipa is a room in an apartment owned by a lovely Peruvian couple, Jose & Ines whose daughter, Evelin, normally runs a hostel in town. However she has recently sold it and bought another place which she is in the process of doing up and planning to open next month. In the meantime, Jose and Ines are letting out two rooms in their apartment. We're here for a fortnight whilst taking Spanish lessons, but other people keep appearing for a few days and disappearing again. The family are really friendly and have made us feel very much at home. Pecana, the cat, has taken real shine to Tony and loves to curl up with him, especially if he's trying to do something else. Cats, it seems, are the same the world over! After living in hostels for the last few months, it's really nice to be in a proper home and two weeks in one place seems like real stability! We're living in a suburb called Selva Alegre (Happy Wood: not as green as it sounds!). It's about a 20 minute walk into town and about 40 minutes back up the steep hill, or a cheap taxi ride if we're feeling tired!

Our Spanish still has far to go to be classed as fluent, but the combination of talking with Jose and Ines plus our lessons with Mabel mean that we are using Spanish much more now. There are just the two of us in the class so there's no sitting back and hoping not to be asked questions! Generally half of the lesson, at least, is purely conversational, which is really good for our speaking and listening skills and then we get on to trying to improve some of the grammar...

Outside of school we've explored the city, taking in some of the sites. The most impressive of Ariquipa's buildings is actually more of a town within the town. The Convent of Santa Catalina occupies a whole double block. Surrounded by high, imposing walls it is recognised as Peru's most important religious building. The convent was founded by a wealthy woman who chose her nuns from the richest Spanish families. However, it appears that the young women who joined the order, far from denouncing everything, kept living it up in the style to which they had become accustomed. Admittedly they lived in a closed order, never able to return to or meet with the outside world, but the ratio of servants to nuns was 3:2! It is a maze-like place with streets, courtyards, plazas and gardens and is incredibly colourful. The brilliant colours of the walls of streets and courtyards are stunning in the sunlight. Many of the cells are quite spacious with their own kitchens and courtyards and it appears there was even a market in selling on the best cells to other nuns! We'd certainly be tempted by one if they were up for sale today! These days there are still 30 nuns in this convent but they live within a small, separate section of the complex in a new building, leaving the rest to the tourists!

One of the convent rooms is a place of rememberance for the nuns who died there and to this end they have a portrait of each dead nun, in her dead state. An unusual art collection.

The colours used in the convent relate to those in other colonial houses in Arequipa. Traditionally, the walls of the first courtyard are painted a deep orange-red, denoting the area for meeting and entertaining friends. The second courtyard, painted a beautiful shade of blue, is for the family, and the white area of the final patio is for the ordinary folk and servants. The nuns took vows of silence and were not allowed to meet with anyone from outside (other than through the 'locutorio' where they could speak to, but not see, their family), so we guess the orange-red area was a somewhat quieter area than that of most houses.

We saw this colour scheme again when we visited Casa del Moral, a huge and amazing house, now owned by a bank. It suffered a lot of damage in the 1868 earthquake and was then left to fall apart even more until it was finally bought and restored in the 1940s. Sadly, at this point in its history, the family split it into two houses and sold one part to the fire brigade who knocked it down and built their very unimpressing fire station.

In Arequipa we also encountered, again, our old friend Gustav Eiffel. We took ourselves on a fair old walk across town to the bridge that he designed to cross the valley of the Rio Chili in the south of the city. This once verdant area now has much modern and recent housing around it and has become quite a desirable middle-class area, but still has quite a verdant area within the flood plain that the Puente Fierro (Iron Bridge) crosses. Whilst we were standing admiring it, a local helpfully approached us to ask what we were looking for and seemed quite bemused that anyone should come to look at the bridge. I don't think they get many tourists in those parts!

The climate here in Arequipa is warm and dry, so it seems ironic that at this point in our journey we've both come down with infections! Jen arrived and immediately developed a sore throat, cold and hacking cough that makes it sound as though she smokes 60 a day. Despite downing numerous tablets and bottles full of medicine, the congestion just won't shift. Tony has managed to avoid catching whatever it is, but yesterday his tummy, which has been a bit on and off for weeks, decided that enough was enough. After several hours of his stomach contents constantly emptying through one oriface or another, the poor thing was quite drained and exhausted. Fortunately overnight it seems to have settled a bit and today he has been able to eat and drink a little. I went to school without him and came back with lots of advice like 'drink coca tea!' (it's the cure for everything!). Fortunately Mabel and others at the school also gave me advice about what to ask for at the chemist and he's now dosing up on pro-biotics to fill his tummy full of good flora and fauna and some other stuff to stop the spasms. The things people put themself through to avoid Spanish lessons!






In the meantime Mabel and I had an interesting lesson. She took advantage of it being girls only to discuss the side of pregnancy and childbirth not usually discussed! She has a little girl of 8 months and had quite a horrific time of giving birth - the sort of stuff they don't tell you in the books apparently. We also talked about extended families, complications of families, death and such like. Yesterday we talked about Day of the Dead, how and why it is celebrated. We've had some really good conversations with her, which have developed and stretched our language whilst being informative and interesting at the same time. We'll quite miss her when we move on.