Mere hours before we were to leave Arequipa we met up with our friend, Eve, from the Inca Trek. We decided to have lunch in a beautiful courtyard that belonged to a Turkish restaurant. It was a glorious day, warm, dry and overhead there was a clear blue sky. Although we never really felt any large affinity for Arequipa, its architecture was unique and the buildings were always noteworthy as each courtyard was connected to the next by a series of underpasses and tunnels. The ceilings in all the shops and restaurants in the centre of Arequipa are rounded and it gives the aire of being in a wine cellar. The weather in Arequipa afforded us the luxury of wearing shorts (almost the first time the whole trip) and the people seemed to be friendly enough. After lunch, as we got up to leave and catch our plane to Lima we noticed that a bag was missing. It was taken from between our feet. Poverty is rampant in Peru, as in Ecuador, and although we obviously would not want our belongings to be taken we understand the necessity for some people to steal to survive. We did not lose much in terms of monetary value - and unfortunately for the thief there was nothing worth much money in the bag. There were our plane tickets, some travel documents (but not our Passports), a necklace of Shelley's, sunscreen, and Monty's camera with all 300+ photos of our trip. The tickets et al. were replaceable, but the memories and pictures we had on the camera were cherished and it was quite a blow to be dealt after such a lifemarking 2 months. We tried to bribe the police to file a report so we could make an insurance claim when we returned to Canada, but we fell short of an acceptable bribe and so no report was produced. We then rushed off the the airport to purchase new tickets for our flight to Lima - very disheartened and for the first time on our trip, almost looking forward to being home in Canada... almost.
We arrived at the Carmel Hotel in Lima late on the 11th of June and after showering and discussing our options with a travel advisor (with regards to our missing documents) we went for dinner in the Miraflores district of Lima. We dined at a large restaurant called the Haiti where the waiters all wore burgundy sport coats and red bow ties. We felt as though at anytime Ricky Ricardo and Lucille Ball would arrive or we would be offered a shave and haircut with our meal. We ordered water that came in large glass bottles and sandwiches that came covered in fruit. The people around us were obviously there to be seen and there was a mafia-don looking man who sat behind a counter near the bar that collected the money and barked orders at the staff somewhat indiscriminately. He wore a blue sweater and reminded us of Danny Devito's character on the show Taxi. Needless to say it was an entertaining evening after a hectic day and as we strolled hand in hand out of the restaurant and into the warm, Pacific breeze filled Lima night, we couldn't help but realize that our stint in the Southern Hemisphere was coming to a close. In the park near our accomodations we found an art show and an artist that we enjoyed. We bought two paintings for the walls of OUR home, listened to people caught up in a moment of passion singing Karaoke (very, very poorly), and drank in the last sights and sounds of South America.
In the early morning of June 12th, two travel weary fiances boarded a plane to Toronto, Ontario via Newark, New Jersey. It was the first chapter in an epic travel log waiting to be written.
All good things.
Shelley and Monty
Peru
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