Bad Case of Wanderlust (My Trip Around the World): Arequipa, Day 1 (Nov 27th)

James and I arrived in Arequipa at 6am on Sunday morning and headed straight for our hostel, the Wild Rover Backpackers. The person at the desk said that our room and breakfast would be ready at 8am, so we went to the lounge to take a nap. Unfortunately, the lounge proved rather disgusting, and half of the furniture had been overturned by the previous night's revelers. Thank god for my travel pillow because I did not want to put my head down on that couch. After a futile attempt at a nap, we decided to venture out into the city and have a tea and coffee in a shop on the Plaza de Armas, which was the prettiest I'd seen so far.

As we sat looking out over the plaza, several truckloads of soldiers pulled up for what we discovered was to be a parade in celebration of the liberation of the city.

We ventured down a side street to stop into a pharmacy, and as we were leaving, I spotted a band preparing for the parade.

Some of the band members noticed me watching them tune their instruments, and they sweetly waved me over for a photograph.

The parade wasn't due to start until 9am, so we returned to the hostel, only to discover that we had been misinformed and that our room would not be ready until 2pm, which meant no showers for us until then. Feeling a bit irritated and a bit ripe, we returned to the Plaza to watch the ceremony and parade.

There we saw my sweet military band members again...

... followed by an adorable procession of children dressed in full military and medical garb.

When the parade finished, we headed to the Museo Andinos where a lovely guide took us through the exhibit on the discovery of the "Ice Princess", Juanita, the mummy of an Incan child sacrifice from over 500 years ago. At the end of the exhibit, we saw Juanita herself, refrigerated and encased in glass, with her hair and some of her skin little changed from her own lifetime.

Afterward, we went exploring and booked our Colca Canyon tour. And took a goofy photo or two.

We settled on having lunch in a small alley off the Plaza de Armas.

After lunch, we returned once again to the Wild Rover, at which point they were unable to find the key to our room. When they finally found it and took us there, we discovered that the room was dirty, that it did not have a bathroom at all, and that the barbecue for the bar stood so close to our door, that we had to squeeze by to enter. We took five minutes to call another hostel that had been recommended by someone else at Pariwana, collected our things, and left.

The Wayna River Hostel proved far more pleasant, with private bathrooms, a truly friendly and accommodating staff...

... and a makeshift veranda with excellent views of the sunset over El Misti and the other mountains surrounding Arequipa.

As a unexpected bonus, a fireworks display took place later that night as we prepared for dinner.

Going by a TripAdvisor recommendation, we dined at ZigZag and were not disappointed. James had the Alpaca steak, while I chose a quinoa gnocchi in pesto, and we each sampled each other's meal.