More Arequipa photos! Hurray!
This first post about Arequipa was more focused on detailing the professional side of things - pictures from clinic, description of our workdays, etc. etc. etc. Me being me, I of course have a crazy amount of other pictures from our 10 day trip to share that don't quite fit into neat categories - lots of photos from our time spent around Arequipa doing non-work things. Most days kept us pretty busy so we didn't exactly have a lot of time to explore [save a few brave souls who ventured out late at night instead of collapsing into bed from exhaustion like the rest of us], but we did get to wander around a bit as a group on a couple of occasions built into the schedule.
the pretty courtyard at our hotel
view from the hotel roof
first lunch!
the drink is a local specialty called chicha morada, made from corn.
Little bits and pieces from around our hotel after we arrived the first day. We stayed at the Hotel Casa de Avila, which proved to be quite lovely accommodations located kind of towards the central area of the city [I think...?]. We were provided meals as part of the program - breakfast and dinner were served at the hotel every day and lunch was packaged up and provided at our clinic sites, since we're all Americans and thus had to be careful of what we were eating given the water situation in South America [no joke - we were all warned to bring antibiotics and prophylactic anti-diarrheal medicines and Pepto-Bismol because this can be such a big problem for visitors].
The first afternoon, after we had all arrived at the hotel and gotten settled in, we were given a bit of free time to roam around and explore before dinner. We walked the couple of blocks to the Plaza de Armas and poked around the main square area for a bit; some of my friends were in search of a place to convert money, but most places were closed by that point in the day so it was something of a fruitless quest. The cathedral itself was beautiful, and we almost paying to go inside for a tour, but the jetlag ultimately won out on that decision.
Cathedral of Arequipa
checking out a street artist
the little man on these walk signals actually starts moving when the light changes! insignificant but still cute.
scenes from a school we visited during outreach
alpacas!
These pictures above are from one of our outreach sites; the school had a small "zoo", if you will, located outside containing a few animals like chickens and alpacas. The alpacas had a lot of personality and were a big hit among the American crowd, obviously; we spent quite a while taking turns posing next to the fence to have our pictures taken "with" the alpacas. When in Peru, you know?
We had the day off on the Sunday in the middle of our trip, and in the afternoon we went on a tour of the Santa Catalina Monastery.
Santa Catalina Monastery
Afterwards we disbanded into smaller groups to walk around and shop and grab dinner at an actual restaurant instead of the hotel. We were provided with a few recommendations for places that were nearby and appropriate for foreigners, and coincidentally a lot of us ended up Chicha.
dinner at Chicha
I ordered what I thought was going to be some sort of local Peruvian pasta dish, but ultimately ended up being ravioli with, like, tomatoes and garlic - joke's on me. Since we were eating at a restaurant called Chicha, we obviously had to indulge in a few glasses of chicha morada, the traditional drink made from purple corn. One of my friends who knew better made sure we ordered a dish of queso helado, which is a traditional dessert local to Arequipa that's basically fancy artisanal ice cream and so, so delicious. I think a couple of my classmates were brave enough to try cuy, or guinea pig, which is apparently a normal Peruvian entree. Or something. I'm of the mindset that I don't watch to eat animals that I've owned as pets [fish not withstanding, I guess], so that definitely was a bit too weird for my taste.
snack break!
guess this spot has a good view of the cathedral...
Just a couple more pictures from around town. Those churros were seriously delicious, for anyone interested. :)
beautiful scenery behind one of our outreach stops
These pictures are from outreach on our last day of clinic. The first children's home we stopped by in the morning was way up towards the mountains on the outskirts of the city and provided us with some absolutely gorgeous views.
And that's all for this trip. I'm slowly making my way through the backlog of photos and post material that I've let build up over the past year or so - I hope you're ready for some recapping of old news, haha.