I´ve been with Heather in Arequipa for three days now, staying with Johanna, my internet-friend (or previously only internet friend, at least). Our last stop, Ica, was kind of a miss. I just wanted to briefly stop there for a particular museum, but it never opened that day. Also, I was a bit sick in the stomach. So at the Plaza de Armas - or town square - I lied down on a bench, till a security guard said I couldn´t do that. He left and I lied down again. He saw me, told me I had to get up, and I said I was feeling sick. He said if you are sick you have to go to the hospital. I stayed down, so he said ok then I´ll call an ambulance. I said yeah, as if... but ten minutes later the ambulance was there. Anyway, we left before we got into trouble...
At five pm we got back on the bus, and a horrible ride it was this time. The driver put on a DVD of five Jackie Chan movies, and if I hadn´t asked him to stop it as no one was looking, it would´ve played all night – as did the music. The bus stopped every two hours and then people got up, crying loudly to sell whatever they were selling, before disappearing again. Of course all the time the lights went on. So when I leave tomorrow for Puno, I´m taking a more expensive bus.

Anyway, now I am still in Arequipa, which is a very nice city, its horizon dominated by the 5800 high El Misti volcano, and some other snow capped mountains. Our host, Johanna is a wonderfully sweet girl. Staying with a family is a different and interesting experience. Her father runs a business that publishes school books, and I´m going to take some to the orphanage I´m going to in Cusco. We had some days of rest here and hung around the city, visiting the Santa Catalina convent, rowing a boat, seeing some churches... Yesterday Heather and I cooked for the family and they seemed to like it a lot. The mother, a very sweet woman, spoils us with good food (the first time it was hard to get around a soup with beef stock, and I had a few spoonfuls before I put it aside, and yesterday we had to refuse a gelatine-dessert).

So tomorrow I leave for Puno, the main city near the Peruvian side of the Titicaca lake. The day after or two days after I will leave for Cusco.