2011-01-14
Arequipa
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| view from the terrasse |
As usual my day began very early (I could never sleep longer than until 7 am). I got up and went to the terrace on the roof which gave me a stunning view over Arequipa and the Andes in the morning light. Afterwards I had a chat with the owner of the hostal and got all the official stuff done. By that time Chris was awake and we went to have breakfast at a place nearby our hostal.
After that we hit the town and walked pretty much the whole historical center sneaking into backyards, hidden stores, small traditional clothing shops and so on. It was pretty amazing. After a while we found a French baguetteria in a courtyard which became our favourite place in town to have breakfast or a little snack in between.
Afterwards we did some shopping and got nice Alpaca Wool hats and some souvenirs…not to mention the picture postcards to send home. ;-)
In the afternoon we just sat on the terrace and chilled in the sun.
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| at the Soncollay |
After a nice dinner we went to a restaurant called “Soncollay” to have a sundowner which was amazing because we were sitting at the plaza while the sun set. The drinks were tasty but what was the most exciting thing: When we wanted to pay the check the owner of the place started asking where we were from and such questions and so we got into a talk. After some minutes he invited us to go see the kitchen. The restaurant serves pre-inca cuisine which has a certain way of cooking the food, special ingredients and spices. Conversation moved on and he started talking about languages – how they correlate, where certain words come from and how everything connects in one place.
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| Plaza Del Arma |
That’s when I started to get curious about what he had to say. He asked us if we were going to Machu Picchu. And then he talked about an old Inca word that described the herb that was used during the Inca time to smoothen the stones for their buildings. He explained how this word in other cultures meant “to lift” and then lead to the word that has “ocarina” in it which would be the flute-like instrument. He said that it could mean that music lifts things. Then he talked about old cultures like the Inca that developed 7 senses – 5 for the material world around us and 2 more: the third eye to perceive the spiritual world and the crown chackra enabling us to receive the universal energy.
I was blown away by this experience and had nothing to add. I got goosebumps and was so hyped about visiting this sacred place of Machu Picchu!
We promised him to come back the next night to have dinner in his restaurant.
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