Arequipa.

A slow death - in both body and mind - awaits any who endeavor to survive an overnight trip on a cheap bus in Peru. All made worse if the ticket wasn't cheap. Overnights can break you apart as a person and leave you wishing to be anywhere else or to be able to do anything else. If the bus is nice; if the company is good; if the road is well paved, you may have a chance at sleep and something working toward a low-temperature contentment.

Our bus to Arequipa falls nowhere near the worst in the great scale I now have of Latin American bus rides, but I had expected a decent bus and instead received a night without sleep or comfort.

So this entry does not begin when we arrive at Arequipa. Instead it starts at 11am, after we woke up from the only sleep we'd had in 24 hours - after going to bed a little after 6am when we found our way to a place with beds.

So, the largest and most influential city in southern Peru:

We only spent a day in Arequipa. Kat didn't like it, and it rained despite averaging only 5 days of rain a year. We saw the monastery. The town is classic colonial. We left the next morning.