The Big Trip: Day 2: Foodies in Arequipa

Beth and I were up early (8:00) and walked around in search of a coffee for Beth. There wasn’t too much open, so sadly (gleefully?) she got an Americano and I got a Chai from Starbucks...lol.

The kids had agreed to wake up at 9, but it was a number of loud knocks until we got someone to come to their door - they were in a deep sleep and looked like they were in a complete daze. Breakfast, overlooking the beautiful Plaza, woke them up. The weather here is amazing - zero humidity and about 18 to 20 in the shade, and hot in the sun. Evenings so far have dropped down a few degrees, I’m sure getting cool over night.

After breakfast we walked to the central market.... a different take than the dozens of central markets we’d visited in Europe and Asia. The arrangements of fruit rising up perhaps twenty feet high at and angle, the huge variety of potatoes and the seafood section were the highlights. The lowlights for the three girls were definitely the meat sections, but I couldn’t bypass those.

There was plenty of people watching both in the market and outside. There are vendors on the street everywhere you go, selling all kids of products, often in neat, orderly, portable arrangements. There are women selling cups of cut up fruits often from a converted baby stroller. There are all kinds of ice cream vendors from tiny little fridges sporting umbrellas.

At one point, we saw a car blaring Queen with two banners mounted on top advertising a Queen cover band concert. Quickly WhatsApping with the Versly confirmed that we should get tickets for tomorrow night. It should be either awful, hilarious or better still, awfully hilarious. We stopped by the theatre and discovered that not only was there a Queen tribute band, but that a Beatles tribute band would be opening for them (at least, that’s what our very limited ability in Spanish has led us to believe!).

We walked quite a bit, eventually reaching a parting of the ways when Beth and Robin headed back to the hotel for a short rest and Abby and I continued to check out some neighbourhoods that were farther out.

Abby and I got back to the hotel an hour later, and gathered the other two to head to El Buda Profano - a vegan sushi place that sounded quite cool.

The streets were far busier today - with the majority of cars from what we saw to be taxis... probably 90%! There were way more people on the roads, but I was surprised at the high ratio of locals to tourists, despite us being in the heart of the tourist quarter.

The sushi place was amazing... another 5 table nook in the wall restaurant where we watched the two local chefs prepare our vegan sushi rolls, vegan vegetable Raman and vegan sushi bowls for the kids. Yum.

The afternoon was all about chillaxing.... Abby with her sun and book, Beth with a massage and poolside nap, me with blogs, books and podcasts by the pool and Robin restlessly disappearing to her room after getting shot down to play another round of Presidents.

For dinner we went to another on Abby’s list and it was a hit. The place was called Zig Zag, slightly bigger than others as it had a few tables on the second floor, reached by a beautiful winding staircase that had a plaque next to them stating that they were designed by Gustave Eiffel. The ceiling was arched block construction with a light stucco finish just like the rest of the places we’d been eating at, and it kind of reminded me cave hotels in Cappadocia (I can’t help it, I have travelreferatism). The food was amazing - three of us had meat served on lave stones with four tiny dips and robin had pesto gnocchi.
Beth did well to avoid the garlic but the girls and I could not resist... so good.

On our way back through the square, we noticed a small commotion of maybe 100 people singing and dancing to the beat of a drum. A quick google search of the logo on some of their shirts revealed that these were some kind of futbol team support club. Fun!

When that broke up, another bigger group formed at the other end of Plaza de Armas with a small band and a group of dancers, mostly children with some adult teachers/leaders. It was a great vibe. The whole square, maybe 500 meters square with a large park with lots of trees and benches and cantered on a huge fountain was really a place for locals. This almost seemed strange to us, because so often when you go to a city and they have a huge square surrounded by hotels and tourist outfitters, locals would avoid it like the plaque. Not Plaza de Armas - it was a respite from the sun during the day, and a place to gather with friends in the evening, and I think this is one of the main reasons that Arequipa has the charm that it does.