The Earth Moves (Arequipa, Peru)

Yo yo, So after I dusted my boots free of sand, I sat back the next day and took yesterday just for me. I sat around the lagoon-resort of Huacachina and chatted with some newly met british friends who were taking a brake from teaching english in Lima.

Then I caught the first of what will surely be many long late night buses, 10 hours to Arequipa, second largest city in Peru, buildings made of vocanic rock, and surrounded by 5000-6000m volcanoes and the worlds deepest canyon. Arequipa has had some troubled history with earthquakes, and today was no exception. Not more than an hour after I arrived, I was eating breakfast, and all of sudden the whole building started doing the Jello Pudding Wiggle. It went for a suprising 5-6 seconds, not just a jolt like most Berkeley quakes. On the plus side, it provided a great ice breaker for everyone I meet, talking about my own experience with earthquakes.

Groggy from my comfortable yet not too comfortable drive, I passed out for a while, checked out the town, looked at some tours, and checked out a frozen mummy of a little girl who was sacrificed 500 years ago to please the gods. She was preserved in the ice atop a volcano and is just plain freaky to look in the face because everything from her hair to her internal organs are preserved. I've been getting busy uploading photos to facebook, (much faster than BOD, although not full quality), and I'll be making backup cds of my photos and sending them home for safekeeping.