Our Family in Arequipa

As we leave Arequipa, we owe a big thank you to our dear host family, la familia Collantes. La señora Gladys was our host mother, and took very good care of us with many excellent breakfasts and general warm hospitality. Here we are with her:

The family also includes two wonderful young people, Fernando and his sister Francesca, who were both very hospitible as well, and didn´t seem to mind too much our invasion of their house. Fernando is an excellent fútbol player, and Francesca is an aspiring model (we even went to one of her student fashion show, in which she wore a beautiful pink gown. Ever since I have been calling her `superstar`.)

So ... what else have we done this week? Well I think it is safe to say that we´ve kept it relatively low-key after our big adventure last weekend (see previous post), but we have managed to have some fun. Our friends Giovanna and Rosa took us to an outlying plaza for a meal of fried beef heart, potatoes and these delicious sort of donut things covered in caramelized sugar. Not the best for the colestorol count, but delicious. Aslo, we visited the amazing museum at the monestario de al Ricoleta, a ancient franciscan monestary with a wonderful ancient library. Among the precious colonial books there was a very early edition (1st or second printing) of Don Quixote. It must have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it was just sort of sitting there in an unlocked glass case.

The museum was lovely, with lots of beautifully preserved cells and rooms ... in this picture you can see the monk`s scourge hanging conveniently over his bed, just in case mortification of the flesh is needed pronto.

As in all of Peru, pure enigma is never far around the corner, and indeed here in the monestary as we rounded one of the next corners, we were presented with a display concerning the history of Peruvian dolls. We were not sure what to make of this. Maybe you can help us:

We are off to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. More soon from there.

- MP