News of Arequipa

Peruvian Breakfast

Arequipa is widespread over several ridges that decline from the surrounding volcanoes to the West towards the Pacific ocean. For the town and its suburbs give home to about one million people those ridges are numerous. In between there are small valleys and creeks with irrigated terraces where vegetables, corn and fruits are grown as well as cattle grazes. Each of the ridges has its own flair and it is really good fun exploring them. The biggest valley which divides the town in two parts and on which slopes the old city stands is the Chilina Valley which through the Chili River runs. Although we are actually rafting right at the skirt of the city the trip leads through green fields and formidable gorge landscapes.

My daily routine is going to the base of the agency by combi in the morning bying breakfast on the way: Vegetables, bread, cheese, liquid cereals, maybe eggs and always a fresh mango. Those are far the best fruits over here. In the base we eat together and then wait for a rafting trip. If there isn´t any we work in the base. Yesterday for example we had made an brick oven for bread, pizza, etc. For lunch we always go into a near very typical restaurant. It is a small room of maybe 26 sqm which of six sqm are kitchen. The rest is dining room and filled with seven tables from two to four chairs which are positioned in such a surprisingly way that when it is full at lunch time the waitress still can move in between. She is a friendly, small, chubby, caramel coloured barby doll always coqueting with me and Christian. The Peruvian kitchen is very good. Much more vegetables and less meat that I am used to from Chile. A lot of pulse, maize, pumpkin and espacially potatoes. In Peru more than 3000 varieties of potatoes are grown and almost every meal contains or is accompanied by them if not by rice. They also trade and eat them dehydrated and call it chuño then.

   After the last trip if there had been one or otherwise somewhen in the afternoon we drive back with the combi to the city. Meanwhile I got used to this uncomfortable rides and even can enjoy them watching the scenery outside or people inside. As I said traffic is very chaotic and noisy and so are the police(wo)men. There exist numerous kinds of police from the National one to the Tourist Police. For me they all look the same in their uniforms and the women especially attractive with their cute helmets or hats and their fitting, breeches style trousers. Which certainly is more a fact of the beauty of the Peruvian women than of the uniform. The only things what makes them all looking a little bit ridiculous is that they are permanently blowing their whistles. As permanently as drivers sound their horn. Nevertheless cars seem to win that sound duel mostly and police(wo)men seem to whistle just out of resignation sometimes. Once I saw a policeman blowing his whistle when their had not been a single car around.

Arriving at downtown we visit the office, go to the internet, have a rest, take a coffe or whatever. For dinner we have another favourite restaurant which represents the other side of Peruvian Cuisine. It is a so called chifa or Chinese restaurant although I have never ever seen a single Chinese in one of them so far. Anyway you get something there which is supposed to be Chinese food. There are plenty of these restaurants here, possibly because of many Chinese immigrants in Peru but I am not sure about this. This chifa is bigger than the other restaurant, the TV is always switched on (as in most of the restaurants) and the orange walls are sparely decorated with three Feng Shui fotos of a Chinese Version of the Austrian village of Hallstatt on which a couple of small wooden houses are built on a steep wooded slope right on the shore of an azure lake or river. They are still wrapped in their transparent packaging foil. The only other decoration is a heroic poster of a young Bruce Lee in front of the painting of a Chinese dragon.
But the highlight of Peruvian food as I mentioned is the mango. They are that soft, fresh, sweet and cheap here as I only know them from India. So daily I eat at least one.