Shopping with pigeon ladies...
Trip Start
Oct 23, 2008
1
20
36
Trip End
Dec 18, 2008
Àrequipa,
Peru
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
We spent our time hanging out with Ross and a couple other guys we met along the way.
Bryce decided it was a good time for a shopping spree.
We surprisingly attended a museum tour all about the ice princess Juanita -- a 500 year old mummy of a young girl almost entirely preserved - internal organs, skin, hair, fingernails, the works. She was found in the ice on top of Mt. Ambato when a neighboring volcano errupted and melted much of the ice on surrounding mountains. It was kind of creepy to see her, but in a good way, or something.
We decided to be frugal for some reason and bought some bread, cheese and fruit for lunch. We sat down in the Plaza de Armas to have a nice picnic when a woman sat down next to us with a giant bag of birdseed and began feeding all the pigeons in the park. Soon we were entirely surrounded by a hungry mob of pigeons willing to do anything for a bit of food. The woman proceeded to grab one of the pigeons and rubbed it all over her face, in her shirt, under her hat and even had its beak in her mouth for a bit - the entire time she mumbled sweet nothings to the pigeon as I stared uncontrollably with a look of complete disgust on my face... I didnt care, she was asking for it.
Suddenly a kid came by, scared all the pigeons. They flew up towards us. Bryce took cover while screaming, and everyone laughed at us. Good times in the park.
We couldn´t decide whether to hike the Misti volcano or the Colca Canyon, so we nixed them both, checked out of our hostel and caught an overnight bus to Cusco.
This was the best city yet.
