Jacqui's Adventures: 1st Rotary Vacation

Yes. I am a procrastinator. I went on amazing trip from October 3rd-October 10th and I am just now going to write about it.

Arequipa
Arequipa is the 2nd biggest city in Peru of about one million people, nestled in the South of the country in between a volcano and two other huge mountains. It's elevated about 2,380 meters above sea level.
We stayed with different Rotarians while we were these- I was also with 3 other exchangees (another form the US, one from Switzerland and one from Belgium). On the first day, our host mom showed us all around the city. We went to many different Plaza and Miradores (places with pretty views).

We also went to (but didn't eat at) a very old restaurant, the last in Peru that doesn't use electricity. We got to go into the kitchen, and there was chickens and guinea pigs just wandering around in the kitchen.

My "sisters" and I met up with two other exchangees (both guys from the U.S.) and went to the Plaza de Armas after dinner. We hung out there for about 3 hours. We went to one restaurant and one of the workers let us onto the roof! So we got to see the Plaza from a not-so-common angle.

As a group in Arequipa, we went to the Municipality of Yarahura and met some important guy (someone like the mayor). We also took a "city tour," which went to most of the same places I had already been to.

Colca Canyon
Our overnight trip to Colca Canyon was probably my favorite part of the entire trip. The city of Colca is about 100 kilometers from Arequipa, but it took us nearly 4 hours to get there because we had to drive over, around and through the Andes Mountains. We also stopped a bunch of times to go to small Peruvian markets, where most of us bought Alpaca-fur sweaters and Choros (hats).

Right after we got there we went on a long hike through the mountains, and ended up at a pool (I have missed swimming so much). We stayed at the pool (which was pretty much a giant hot tub) for almost 3 hours. We had dinner in a tourist restaurant and then went to a Discoteca :). We were the only ones there at the disco, but it was pretty cool regardless. We returned to the hotel at midnight, and then woke up at 4:30 to go to "el Cruz de Condores" (the Condor's Cross). We got there at 8:00, and were really lucky to see about 20 condors!

Tacna
Tacna was another 6 hours south of Arequipa. We went in bus, but to enter the department of Tacna, we all had to get off the bus and get our bags checked for fruit. I thought that was pretty amusing.

Tacna is the Southern-most city in Peru with a population of about 100,000. It's not a huge tourist attraction, but we got to do a lot of things with Rotary and Roteract while we were there. Our first night there, they had arranged a small "family" party, which we all went to and played volleyball and hung out.
The next day, as a group, we went on a bus tour of the area. We went on another hike, where we got to see a whole ton of pre-Inca glyphs carved in rocks. And we got to cross this really cool/slightly terrifying bridge.

Arica, Chile
Another one of the coolest things about the trip, was that we went on a day trip to Arica, Chile! We took a 30-minute bus ride to the Peru-Chile border, and had to spend about a hour getting through two sets of border controls. But we all got through, and we all got new, 180-day visas, so that's good.
We went to a museum full of Inca/Pre-Inca artifacts, then to a restaurant that used to be a train station.

We walked around the Plaza de Armas and bought key chains and ice cream.
"Small Prices" ($1.00=555 Chilean Pesos)

We also went to the main Mirador in Arica, a cliff facing the ocean, and a giant "Jesus de la Paz"