With a yellow poncho and only one arm sticking out of the arm hole, my mother commented that she was the ‘big bird.’ We are in Arequipa now and are staying at my Uncle Richard’s apartment in downtown. We woke up this morning early in Arica and drove to the Arica international Airport. When we got there, the airport was empty. After waiting and waiting for a while.

There was finally someone at the check-in counter and we checked in and were the first people waiting upstairs for the police counter to open. We waited for a while upstairs before the police counter opened and we were able to go through that and security before waiting for a while more for the airplane to get ready.

After 35 minutes of flight time, we popped down into Arequipa and found my Uncle Richard waiting for us and reading a novel. When we got out into the parking lot, we found a taxi and all 5 of us got into a space meant for only 4 people. When we finished up with that and all of the grunting of going up 4 flights of stairs to my uncle’s flat, where we spread our stuff out for a while. When we decided to leave, we went out to get keys, Claro, and look into some museums.

We first got some keys duplicated by a streetside vendor before walking down the street for a ways and getting to a convent. We learned about how the nuns were not allowed to leave the walls and only their slaves could go out. We also learned how they were NEVER EVER allowed to see men, and even the priest for Mass was always behind a curtain.

When we finished up with that, we found that outside, it was raining, so on a street corner, we bought a poncho and an umbrella and went to a grocery store to buy some necessities. After going through the necessary steps to get a taxi back to the flat, we rode back and the new keys worked. For the rest of the evening, we have eaten See’s Candy, talked, and done things on some of the various electronics scattered around the room.

That’s all for now, Folks!