Arequipa y Camaná, Peru.

Wow, who knew that blogging would become such hard work when you're so behind? Haha. Moving right along, Grace and I shipped out the very next day after we arrived in Peru to go to Arequipa, a town south of Lima. After having had explored Lima in the day, we went back to our hostel to get ready for our tedious 16 hour bus ride (which wouldn't even be the longest haul one yet). When we went to sleep, we were leaving Lima, but when we woke up the next morning, we'd made it to Arequipa!

The view towards the more modernized area of Arequipa

The monastery right by our hostel

We didn't have a lot of expectations for the town, mostly because we just wanted something to do while we waited out the miners' strike, so the next morning we got up bright and early to go rafting. Our guides were so friendly and excited to talk to me and Grace because one of them was Chilean and from Pucón, where'd we both been before, and another was from Córdoba, Argentina, which is where one of Grace's roommates were from, so we had a lot to chat about. We were with four other people, two Italians who spoke no English, and two Germans who spoke no Spanish, so we were quite the linguistic bunch. After cleaning up back in our hostel, we decided to head to the beach, so we hopped on a bus to Camaná, an even smaller beach town 3 hours north of Arequipa.

A group shot after popping Grace's rafting cherry

Worn out, but so worth it!
The sun was setting right as we were driving to Camaná

Camaná ended up being one of my favorite places in Peru - after Machu Picchu of course :) It's just this small beach town with much less tourism than anywhere else I'd been during my trip to Peru, so it was much more relaxed and less crowded. In the midst of all the stress of traveling, it was such a relief to just take a day and chill on a beach. There was nobody there, it was less expensive, and just a productive 24 hours! While pondering whether to stay another night, though, we found out that the strikes had ended, so we ran to grab the first bus back to Arequipa so we could swing up to Cusco right away.

What's not to love about this?

Locked, loaded, and ready to bus back to Arequipa
Peace.