Volunteering in Arequipa
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
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82
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Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Arequipa,
Peru
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Chacani Children 13
. but for this they naturally need funds so they are thinking of ways to try and get more donations. Aswell as the volunteering I will be taking some more Spanish lessons to try and sharpen up my (very basic) language skills and there is a lot to do around Arequipa in the way of treks and activities (such as two very large volcanoes to climb) so overall I´m looking forward to my stay here. After Arequipa I´m booked on a 4-day trek up the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu at the end of August so I will be heading onwards up to Cuzco. Just like when I was staying in Xela in Guatemala for a few weeks I plan to write one blog entry a week to describe what I´ve been getting up to. This first week in Arequipa was concluded with me moving into the volunteer house and a good weekend spent hanging around the city and hurtling down a volcano or two on the Sunday ! On the Saturday I moved from my very friendly hostel into a house in the city where most of the other volunteers also live - its a nice & comfortable 1970´s style house , very spacious and with a great garden that catches the sun ... but with a downside that it is a fair bit away from the centre and needs a 10 minute taxi ride to get into the main part of the city - but that´s still pretty cheap at only 50 pence (3 Peruvian soles) a time. The other downside is that some other volunteers are coming in two weeks time who have already pre-reserved accomodation , so for my final week or so volunteering as things stand I will need to move out again and back into a hostel
Chacani Children 3
. I went to the very interesting local city market on Saturday morning with a few of the other volunteers from the house - you can buy just about anything at the market , including a cat for about 5 soles (80 pence) or a guinea pig for 8 soles (1.40 GB pounds). In the afternoon I met up for some lunch & a drink with Lotte , a Dutch girl I had met in my hostel and then in the evening we both had a really fun dinner with another Dutch couple and Rob , the English guy who I had met on the Galapagos boat & again in Cuenca .It was quite funny and a bit random because I didn´t know Rob had made it from Cuzco to Arequipa ... so Lotte had asked me to join her and a Dutch couple whom she had met in the plaza for some dinner ... meanwhile independently Rob had met the very same Dutch couple in his hostel & been on a trek with them and they had invited him to join aswell ... so an amusing and pleasant surprise when both Rob and I turned up to meet with the others in the Plaza. At the dinner I continued my sampling of the local Peruvian cuisine by joining some of the others in eating alpaca - it was pretty nice actually & not that much different in taste to a steak to be honest. Then on the Sunday Lotte & I took a mountain biking tour to one of the nearby volcanoes "Chacani" , which is very pretty , snowcapped and around 6000m high . A 4x4 jeep took us for about 2 hours from Arequipa up a very bumpy road which leads up the side of the volcano to about 4900m up where there is a little ranger station & mobile phones masts
Chacani Children 1
. There we got the bikes out of the 4x4 and the guide put the wheels on before we set off hurtling down the volcano ... its a great ride with some fantastic scenery but its really bumpy so your arms and back get jarred all the way ... then there was also a really sandy bit which made it quite hard to stay on - as Lotte found out when she promptly fell off ! ... but luckily a soft landing on the sand so more funny than painful. It was nice when we reached another bit with smooth tarmac on the road towards the bottom where we could really whizz down fast without all the bumping. Overall it took about three hours in total to get down , as we stopped lots for photos along the way. As the guide then had to pick up two other people who´d been climbing the other nearby volcano , "El Misti" (which is also around 6000m high and a perfect conical volcano shape), he said after the first volcano we could also go with him to El Misti , ride down that aswell and then all the way back downhill into town ... two volcanoes for the price of one was an irresistable offer so we took him up and enjoyed more riding . We didnt go up as high on the second volcano as El Misti is way too steep to bike down ... but still it was another fun downhill ride and we stopped for a packed lunch along the way in a very picturesque spot by some volcanic craters .... all in all it was a really great trip and a fun first weekend in Arequipa ! 
