Walk around Arequipa

I strolled out of the hotel and down to the main square which is anchored on an enormous Catholic church in the style of most Latin American countries. A pretty girl came up to me and asked if I would take her picture in front of the square and I obliged her. Then I had her pose, wearing my hat, which I do everywhere I go. She liked the picture so much she had me take one with her camera.

Well over nine out of ten cars here are taxis, tiny Hundais. I was given a list of three taxi companies I should use by the wonderful staff at the hotel. There are scores of taxi cab companies in this town. I asked what was wrong with the other companies and I was informed that I could be robbed, kidnapped or driven out of town and beaten. Ok. I'll stick with your recommendations. The business clump together around here. There are five blocks where about the only street level business is optics, eyeglasses and contact lenses. A short ways away a couple of blocks of nothing but solar water heaters and solar electrical panels. I can't see any product differentiation between the stores. Although one would think that this would be a shoppers paradise with all the competition I recall that about one quarter of the businesses in downtown Cusco were tour companies all offering the same tours at the same price. Getting off track a bit they all go to the same places in the same order at the same time. If somebody were to do the Sacred Valley tour backwards then I'd go with them. Nobody but our group would be at the first or last stop.

Another street had nothing but very small shops jammed with specialty items, one had nothing but molded plastic, hundreds of cubic feet of plastic clothes pins made up about one quarter of the inventory. Specialty stores for toilet paper, eggs, chain, rope, styrofoam containers. Some of the stores where the size of a small closet about 3 feet by 3 feet. The vendor sat on the sidewalk in front of the store. Other significantly larger stores were so jammed with merchandise that the owner sat on the sidewalk in front of it as there was no room for him inside.

I saw a vegetable store and bought one kilo of tomatoes, a large head of lettuce, a large cucumber, a large carrot, an onion, a pint of vinegar and a pint of oil for four sols about $1.40. Then I wondered how long I was going to walk around carrying this bag and just gave it to some guy sitting in a driveway. Six hard boiled quails eggs were one sol and delicious. I went back for more and the guy was busted, he was selling them to the locals seven for a sol, but I pretended not to notice.

An old man was shuffling down the street very slowly, hunched over he moved his four legged cane three or four inches and his feet accordingly. I hailed a cab had the driver, put the man in the front seat and handed the driver three sols. I then confirmed that the fare was complete and he wasn't going to ask the man for more.

It's eight o'clock. I think I'll read a little about the Lost Land of the Incas and retire early. The day after tomorrow I will be getting up at two in the morning to begin a long hike, may as well get my body used to early to bed early to rise.

Later.