Hey, Medical Tourism

Torres del paine is still haunting me, mainly my leg. We've shacked up in Arequipa for the week once again at the fantastic Arequipay Hostal. It's been nice not moving for a bit, there's plenty more to see but we'll save the other sights for another trip.

We're recovering from our vacation. I went to the doc for the most odd medical experience I have ever had. It started off as a stop at the pharmacy for some ibuprofen, the lady said a better course of treatment would be an injection. She led me out of the store, around the block to a clinic where she left me after a few words to the desk gal. I sat unsure of what was in store for me.

I was handed a sign in sheet that was oddly comprehensive including required spaces for my religion and blood type. I was ushered into an office for the typical hight, weight and blood pressure tests, but than shooed into the hall again and told to wait.

A doctor type figure came and collected me. He was a doctor I think...so said his poorly photocopied license from the University of Lima...if it was this guy's degree anyway.  He looked at my knee asked some questions which I clearly had no answers to due to my next to basic vocabulary in Spanish. From what I gather,  he said I had tendenitious and he scratched a prescription together and again shoed me away.

I was sent back to the pharmacy where they loaded a bag with needles, seringes, three types of medication for three days in small brown vials. They sent me back to the clinic, I think, anyway that's where I went for the administration of the prescription. A couple min later they had my pants down a bit and a huge needle in my butt cheak. They handed me the bag with three fewer vials and told me to come back tomorrow at the same time. Each day I would  walk to the clinic with my own drugs in hand, get stuck and limp back home.

Rob, on the otherhand, was tending to a broken tooth that suddenly interrupted his trip. He received a recommendation from Nancy at the hostel front desk for a dentist. He showed up at the clinic where they breifly diagnosed the break and amazingly said they could get started right away reconstructing the tooth. Rob chose lunch first, and slowly and painfully chewed with one side of his mouth the last of his solid meals in the week.

Later that day he went back to the dentist for the start of his tourture.

Hey, We're headed back north

Having traveled north to south on the Pacific coast of the continent, we begin a mad dash back North to catch our flight home from Bogota. Our first step was exiting Chile which means we must say goodbye to toilet seats, soap in bathrooms, printing our own produce labels, and high cost of living.

We flew back from Puente Arenas to Santiago after searching the city for a car wash that was open on a rainy day. Why you ask? After the long trip to the national park we'd caked on some crazy mud and we needed to get rid of the evidence that we'd probably not been their ideal customers. Plus, the rental company has a 45 dollar cleaning fee that also applies to getting the car washed.

We only had about ten hours in Santiago before we were again headed north. Courtesy of my former position the Holiday Inn Airport hotel was affordable and extremely convenient because it's right in front of the terminal.

Once again Sky airlines came through with an amazing deal. A bus to the Peru boarder from Santiago takes approximately thirty straight hours and runs about 45 dollars. Our flight took two and a half hours and cost 30 bucks plus tax. Clearly it was worth every dollar to spring for the flight to Arica and the bus across the boarder back to Tacna and onward to Ariquipa. Yes, to a certain  extent we're being guided by our stomachs. That Ricotto Relleno at La Mundial is so good that we've based our entire journey back north around a pit stop in Arequipa 😎.

Mondays mean chacque in the restaurants. This weird soup consists of a huge hunk of lamb, entrails, pumpkin and potatoes. Remarkably the resulting mixture was delicious, once you get over the chewy texture of the intestines. The bowls are brimming with a bountiful array of spices and just the perfect level of spicy. Rob made the mistake of taking a bite out of one of the chilis, and he quickly downed the rest of the chicha to put out the fire.

Back to the market we went for our nightly meals and even braved eating at one of the local restaurant stalls in the midst of all the bustling. These ladies mean business and they are quite cut throat with how they pull in new business. The server is tasked with herding business onto the sushi bar style stools in front of the chef. Rarely do you see a menu and often just point to what you want. You cant go wrong, they all have the same food.

Hey, Lazy Big Bird

Arequipa is Peru's second city with over a million inhabitants. It is known as the white city not for the abundance of colonial whitewashed houses, but instead for the high concentrations of gringos and expats.

We stayed at the Areqipay Backpacker House on the edge of town. The restored house hosts travelers and offers tours and amusements such as billiards, foosball, two kitchens, two TV rooms, ping pong and many other comfortable lounge areas.

The city's holy week celebrations were in full swing. Thousands of people attended processions throughout town. They followed their patron saint their churches Virgen, or their Señior as the bearers swayed like elephants in unison to move the altars through the streets. Often they'd stop for a breather and for other members of the congregation to replace them. The churches adorned the altars with lights, impressive bouquet of flowers, fruits, and the heavy statues and carried them on their backs. Some were dressed in cloaks according to tradition and others were regiments of only women.

Arequipa prides itself for being a progressive melting ground for cultures and the food may have driven this melding more so than any other factor. Picanterias are traditional restaurants where they'll seat all tables with multiple families, you never eat alone and there is no concept  of "your" table. They are good, very good,  and everybody knows this so rich or poor, brown or white you go and find the food as your invitation to break down stigmas. Picanterias are only open for lunch, which ironically was the perfect  time for their slightly bitter winelike chicha fermented corn drink. What better way to go back to work than after a few jugs of this amazing beverage? 

We were on a mission to find the regional dish Rocoto Relleno which is a stuffed pepper served with a potato casserole. Inside it's got all the goods: steak, rice, hard boiled egg pieces, raisins, peppers, olives, onion salsa and of course cheese. This dish single-handedly reversed my feelings that all South American food is bland, fried and tasteless. This, in one word, was delicious.

A few hours outside of the city is the Colca Canyon which is known for its impressive depth (twice as deep as the grand canyon). The canyons air currents are perfect for the 9 feet wingspan of the lazy Andean condor. I say lazy because they don't  fly, they glide and they don't hunt they scavenge.  The canyon itself I found beautiful, but I must say, it's not really a canyon and it is more of a steep-sided valley between two colossal mountains. I think Arizona and Utah have it beat hands down in beauty.

On the trip to the canyon we stopped at several towns for dreaded tourist breaks. One stop was particularly interesting because in the distance a volcano was spewing smoke high into the sky which made me realize how fragile Arequipa was.

Looming at 6800 meters high, the snow-capped Misty volcano is only 18 miles away from the city. If it blew up the city would be gone in an instant. The Incas knew that their lives rested on the fury of this snowcapped neighbor. In 1995, by accident, a mummy was discovered in an area exposed due to ice melt on a particularly bad El Niño year. Juanita was the first of four perfectly preserved mummies found on the mountain as offerings. The city has a museum with her or one of the others on display in a freezer. She was 15 when taken to the mountain by foot, and on her own will, to be sacrificed. She and the others knew of their fate since birth.