Peru Day 14: Cusco to Arequipa

Feeling a little better today but still eating toast and soda biscuits to bung me up. Kerry wanted to buy some more souvenirs so we had a last minute wander through the urine-smelling lanes buying the cheapest but biggest croissants ever for brunch. We got back to the hotel to wait for our 11:30am pick up and were confronted by two of the hotel reception staff. Llama Travel had forwarded Kerry's complaint email and they wanted to sort it out with us! Bit embarrassing but I think they were quite sorry about their attitude etc. A little language difficulty and even Fernando, our Cusco rep was keen to sort it out on our behalf.

We approached the airport to find that the tour reps were picketing outside the gates and it was impossible to enter by car. Slightly concerned we wouldn't be able to catch our flight, it was simply a case of walking through the gates with our cases. Phew! The flight to Arequipa stopped at Juliaca which is the nearest town to Lake Titicaca taking less than 30 minutes.

The transfer from the airport to our hotel in Arequipa was like traveling through another country. Arequipa is very rich compared to Cusco - the size and moderness of the petrol stations, the cars were a lot newer and less beaten up and very little visible poverty. The Casa Andina was our most luxurious hotel yet, a complete opposite to the Sant Augustin in Cusco. The hotel must have been an old colonnial building with a courtyard for the lounge, smart alcoves with Renaisance art, cacti and chandeliers. You just couldn't help feeling like a millionaire. Our room matched the decadence with a bed needing a taxi to get across it's width, a flat-screen wide TV and a decent toilet with two roll dispensers, very handy for later!

We tried looking for a cafe (by this time it was nearly 5pm) as we had only crisps before the flight but gave up after only finding Turkish or Moroccan restaurants (there's a lot of German visitors here apparently). We headed back to the hotel and ordered the best chicken sandwich ever. The prices had jumped up but it was worth it. We rested on our acre-sized bed watching more dubbed or subtitled TV but then my stomach decided to do an encore of the day before's pebble-dash. This time it seemed worse with painful cramps and the trips more frequent. Thankfully Kerry had some medicinal bung pills and by 10pm I was exhausted so fell asleep.