Day 2

Another long day. We had a lot of errands to run before our certification classes start tomorrow. We walked the city for 5 hours finding the things we needed. It turns out that it is very uncommon to use lined or blank paper in Arequipa. All of the notebooks we found were filled with graph paper. We finally were guided to a place that had what we were looking for. All this shop had for lined paper was rather obscure. I called dibs on Melissa. 

Most things are pretty cheap so far. This morning I got a "cafe con leche" (coffee with some chocolate, cinnamon and milk) with an empanada for $1.50. We can take a cab across the city to the outdoor farmers market (that spans a city block) for $2. The market is incredible with every kind of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, etc. We stopped at a small stand and got some delicious Ceviche Pescado (a raw fish dish that Peru is known for) with lime, onions, hot peppers, and various fish including squid and a white fish. It was a pretty sizeable snack for the two of us for under $2. Barato (cheap)!

The roads are pretty dangerous and drivers are crazy. You really need to be on your toes crossing a street as cars do not obey a crosswalk unless they have a red light. I've only seen 3 bikers and they were kids riding bmx bikes on the sidewalk. I don't think biking is going to happen unfortunately. 

The weather is pretty amazing. It gets to around 73 during the day but the sun makes it feel a lot hotter. We had to grab sunscreen yesterday because we felt like we were roasting. Today we grabbed some $8 sunglasses as we realized we were the only people squinting. At night it drops down quickly once the sun sets to around 45-50. 

We also grabbed burner cell phones yesterday where we can add minutes onto so we can make local calls (each other, housemates, cabs, etc.). I no longer have internet on my phone and it feels kind of like vacation. 

We just finished unpacking and we have to find some food. I don't know what we're having yet but I'm hungry and I bet it's going to be both delicious and cheap.