FAREWELL AREQUIPA, OUR FIRST RETIREMENT TRIP IS HISTORY – 2007 IN PICTURES

We have now come to the end of my memories from our first retirement trip to Peru in 2007. We had made trips to the beach at Mollendo, went to explore the south of Peru, with a sneak peak of Chile, and then out onto the Atacama Desert. There we looked at the results of our work from the 1970’s. The balance of this trip we spent touring our favorite city, Arequipa. On this particular occasion we were with Deysi’s family every day. They patiently took us to see some of the sights of Arequipa, that we may have previously missed. So, at the risk of killing everyone with my incessant pictures, here goes.

I will start this photo tour with a picture of a restaurant that serves a very typical Peruvian breakfast. The breakfast is named Adobo and consists of a heavy Chancho (Pork) stew. It has a thick red sauce, made of spices such as Aji Panca (red chili pepper), onions, garlic, salt and chicha (Corn Beer of the Andes) or apple vinegar. The pork is slow cooked in its own juices and greases, overnight, and very early in the morning the spices, and liquids, are added and it continues to cook until ready to serve about 7:00 AM. It is accompanied by Pan Comun (a fresh homemade bread), which is used for dipping. Peruvian tradition says this breakfast should be served on Sundays before Mass. It is a very heavy meal, and absolutely delicious.

On this visit in 2007, an Adobo breakfast was in our plans. Papi, would scout out the best places to eat it, and find the proper time to show up, before stocks were gone. So, on the first Sunday, we were home, he ushered us to whichever Adobo Restaurant he considered the best at the time. This particular Sunday in January 2007, he took us to a place in Cayma, only about a block from where Deysi and I were married. When you arrive and are presented with a large bowl of pork stew, at 7:00 AM, it is indeed focusing. The smells are heady, the chatter loud and the hustle and bustle of an early morning restaurant, coming alive, is exciting.

Basically, there are no formalities to the eating. It’s just you, a bowl of Pork stew, swimming in a layer of grease, and a pile of fresh baked local bread. You just dig in, chewing, slurping and wiping up the juices with the bread. I could, even at my advanced age in 2007, still put away a pretty respectable load of food. This particular meal was one of my alltime favourites. I might add here; that although Adobo, made in Peru, is by far the best in the world, other places like Spain, Portugal, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and each country in Central and South America also make humble attempts at producing an imitation Adobo. I added that piece for my Peruvian family and friends, to save them pointing it out, after reading this. There is no doubt about, exactly, what they are thinking!

We sat, we ate, and as usual I talked over everyone, with my stories and tales of past exploits. In the middle of one of my famous stories, Deysi, interrupts with one of her own. It starts like, “do you remember the time my Father took you for your first odobo meal?” I’m like, “no, sweetie I don’t think anyone is interested”. Of course they all were. So she explains, that shortly after we were married and during a visit to Arequipa, Papi invited JimboRed to breakfast. He explained that he was taking me to eat the best meal in the world. Well you already know what JimboRed said. “Hell yeah, I’m in”.

So bright and early the next morning, Papi wakes me up and I, groggily, climb in a cab with him, to seek out adobo. While we were eating, chomping and smacking, Papi explains the Peruvian custom for Adobo eating. He said, “because the Adobo is very heavy, it is necessary to cut the grease with Anisado”. I had a vague idea of what Anisado was. What he meant by cutting the grease was, that, near the end of the meal, he ordered a big bottle of this liquorice tasting firewater and two tea cups. He proceeded to fill each, and with a “salud” we tipped them up and slurped the contents. I then let out a big sigh as the Anisado went to work cutting the grease. Almost immediately a warm feeling overtook me.

Before that teacup hits the table, he filled them again, and we proceeded to “cut” more grease. The long and the short of it was, that soon we needed a new bottle of grease cutter. And then possibly one more for the road. The next conscious thought I remember, is Desyi laying me back in a bed about 8:45 in the morning. I had no idea how I got there or even who I was. I truly hoped that Papi was in no better shape than me. The moral of this story is “after eating adobo with Papi at 7:00AM, don’t listen to his bullshit about cutting the grease!” The only reason I survived this little indiscretion was that I was with Deysi’s dad. 8 hours sleep later, I felt as though I had been trampled by a herd of pigs.

One bright morning, we decided to go look at a place at the southeast end of Arequipa. It is called Paucarpata. This area is on the outskirts of the city and very rural. Like every other corner of Arequipa, it was beautiful and full of things to see. The part we looked at first was called La Campina (countryside) and known for it’s platforms built by some peoples in the pre-Inca times. Once again it was a model of Peruvian ingenuity and use of the landscape. A small creek ran through it and water was diverted onto the planting platforms by use of canals and locks. I would like to say it was special, however, anywhere I ever looked in Peru, I managed to find something special.

When we tired of walking, we found some local transport. In the past I have described the Peruvian horse. They are not awful big, but were very sturdy. You could ride them all day and at the end they were still as mean as Peruvian women. Get too close and they were liable to bite “something” off, that you might need later. I tried to get Deysi up on one of them, in memory of her horse, Pancho Negro, from our days in Huambo. Her response was no surprise, “are you crazy”, she asks? But already knows the answer.

We finished our walk in the farmlands and of course could not resist a visit to the local food stall. And as always it did not disappoint. Of course, the main offering was Cuy (guineqa pig) cooked on a flatiron right in front of you. This place had an extra little enticement. You could go out back of the restaurant and select, exactly, the cuy that you wanted for your dinner. You could pick the prettiest one, from their cage full of pets, or select an ugly one that deserved cooking. It was much like going to the crab tank at home and picking out the crab you wanted cooked in front of you. However, I might say that having looked these little guys in the eye, it would have been hard to see it cooked in front of you. We made do with a glass of Chicha.

When I was writing this, I may have got the order of things we visited, this day, a little bit mixed up. One of the main sights to visit in Paucarpata was the Mill of Sabandia. This is a spectacular site, built completely of the white sillar, volcanic stone famous in Arequipa. The most amazing thing to me is that this mill was originally built in the early 1600’s. Basically, not so long after the Spanish had settled the Arequipa area. It was not the first time I visited this mill. I remember in my early days of dating Deysi (say 1978), we used to bring our picnic here. Accompanied by her sisters and brothers, she courted me in this very place. It is definitely one of the places I will never forget in Peru.

The Mill at Sabandia still grinds grain today. Although, at this time, it grinds only for tourists. We toured the mill and remembered the good old days. In some ways it seems like only a heartbeat in time since we were all there together. If I think about it much more, I am going to break down sobbing. So, I had better move on.

During our time in Arequipa in 2007, we made so many stops that it is impossible to write about all of them. So, I am just going to show some of their photos and a brief description of each.

There were some days, when we just had to take a break for some exercise and sport. Eating, drinking and touring were not all we did. So, one day, Arnie, Deysi’s brother, rounded us all up and took us for a little workout! We found ourselves at a place that looked like a big old Peruvian restaurant, but he assured us, it was a place of sporting events. Now I am curious. I remember him telling me that we were going to play the sport of Sapo. “Hmmmm”, I thought, “isn’t a Sapo a frog or toad?” What were we going to do, just jump around. “Wait!” “I know this game, we call it Leap Frog”. Once again my humour was lost on them. “Just wait” Arnie tells me, “you’ll see”.

We go out back of the Sapo palace and there sits some small tables, each with a brass frog in the middle. It is surrounded by holes cut in the top of the table. We are given a handful of brass discs, about 1/4″ thick and the diameter of a silver dollar. Or for those Spanish of ancestry, about the size of a gold doubloon. The principal of the game is to stand back a few feet and toss a gold coin through the mouth of the Sapo (or frog). Now out comes the athletic part of the game. Just as we were having our warmups, the waiter appears with a couple of jugs of Chicha and some big bottles of beer. Now I’m getting into this game. I feel that I could “work out” all day.

We pass the afternoon in very heated competition. The Peruvians were good at their national sport. Even Deysi who had been gone for 30 years could put that disc through that Sapo’s mouth and out it’s butt, into the treasure tray below. Personally, I was not a natural at this sport, but seemed to improve with a few beers. I believe that I got the “gringo” discs. You know the ones that are bigger, than the hole in the Sapo’s mouth.

And of course, there was the inevitable trip to the River Chili Valley on the north end of the city. Again, I can remember being there with Deysi 30 years prior. It was also one of my favorite viewpoints in Arequipa. The River Chili, flows out of the Andes a few miles from this valley and winds its’ way thru farmland and then into one end of the city out the other. In a lot of ways, it showed as much about Peruvian land use and farming as any other place we had seen. In the background was the Mountain Chachani that rises bout 20,000 feet. This mountain is a dormant volcano, but has the potential to erupt, once again, under the right conditions.

Thinking back, I am not sure what attracts us to this place visit after visit. However, the views are perfect, the colours spectacular. It just seems to kind of fit my image of Peru. We spent some time up here, eating, drinking and negotiating for trinkets with the vendors. Every time we came here Deysi could not help but try to negotiate some poor artist out of their trinkets. I think she used them to keep her skills sharp. At this point I am finished our visit to Peru for the year 2007. I apologize if my memories are silly or meaningless. But that’s what I have left. I cannot promise any better for the future. Try as I might. I leave you with these last images.