Dust Demons

We jump out of the pickup truck and the man riding shotgun calls me closer: "Cuidado con los perros salvajes. Es mas seguro para llevar piedras..." He gave me a queesy look and the green machine headed left, shooting a cloud of dust over us like a thin brown blanket.

Walking up to the junk yard, Jonathan and I start laughing uncontrollably. "What ARE we doing? We are probably the stupedest people alive!"

Well, with great risk comes great reward.

We only had one day in Arequipa to enjoy whatever offer came a´callin. The trip to Colca, the famous (Machu Pichu scale-esque) canyon with condors and extreme views was out of the picture. 5 hours away? No thanks. So, we settled for Misti, the massive volcano that dominates the Arequipa skyline. The thing about Misti is that it looks much closer than it is. Also, it is "safer" to go with a guide, something we shrugged off. When we asked our cab driver how we´d get back to town, he just smiled and laughed... Great.

So we told Edwin, the driver, to return three hours later to the San Luis cemetery. We then hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck and walked uphill through the arid dusty wasteland. Imagine: no one but us and poisonous rotten evil killing junk yard dogs. With rocks and big bottles of water in our hands, we were equipped for battle. We werent looking for a fight, though it would make a good story. pproahing their territory, a pack of black drooling devil dogs ran up to us barking in broken English mostly screaming, "Beat it gringos, we eat white meat!!!!" There were no stone throwing, but I came close. We moved past the pack and up the hill, ate lunch,took a grand sista, and went on a wild off-road hike up and down canyons, through ravine, and over cacti. I got stung quite a few painful times. It clear that my "magic pants" arent completely magical after all.

Edwin returned. We ate banana chips and laughed. Took a quick disposable photo with our man and ducked into the Santa Catalina monastary. Gorgeous red hallways. Sick-looking Jesus statues and a great city-mountain view.

We are now showered and are ready for delicious-sounding crepes. We head for Nazca tomorrow morning. Always on the move. Stone-throwing-dog-killer-blood boiling in our blue veins.

RAWWWR!!!