Walking to school in Arequipa [YQrtw Day 91 Jul 9]

Location: Arequipa, Peru

Since I was picked up from my homestay to school yesterday, today was the first day that I walked to school. Classes start at 9:10am so I started myself walked 45 minutes earlier.

Traffic in Arequipa seems to be quite bad almost all the time. Maybe it’s because of the tiny roads and excessive number of taxis zooming around.

The day was sunny but cool when I started my walk. I chose to wear flip flops today because my shoes didn’t have a good grip of the smooth stone pavements in the town center.

I immediately regretted wearing flip flops when I got out of the house. The weather was too cold for my toes to be exposed! As I walked down the road, I noticed that everyone wore covered shoes. The schoolgirls even had knee-length socks as part of their uniform.

The side of the road which I walked on had less traffic since it was the road out of town. However, the opposite side which had traffic heading into town had a really bad traffic jam. It seemed to me that walking was much faster than being stuck forever in the one-way lane.

Traffic here reminded me of Jakarta’s traffic–Bad.

Near the roundabout, the two alpacas which I saw yesterday where still there. Instead of grazing, they were just sitting around, glaring at people looking at them.

I finally reached my language school after half an hour of walking. I’m actually quite thankful that most of my path were in the shade so I didn’t have to worry about UV rays.

At school, I learned new grammar and learned that I’ve forgotten many new vocabulary.

In the afternoon, there was an Arabic cooking session by one of the students. I got to see how baba ghanoush is made in real life! The food was good and we ended with pancakes slathered with jam from Germany.

By the time I walked back to my homestay, the sun was setting so I didn’t get an eyeful of sun.

I went to the Arequipa HQ of mobile operator Movistar to purchase a new SIM card. However, the employee said I could not buy a new SIM with my foreign passport. I was very annoyed about it so I went to its competitor, Claro, to buy a new SIM.

I did eventually get my SIM card so all was well.