The long walk home

We are thoroughly enjoying having our Kombi (VW bus) - it is great to have room for 5 kids and backpacks and lunch boxes. Trying to squish all that in to a taxi at 7:30 in the morning is NOT fun. Well, the kombi is off to the beauty shop tomorrow to get a new coat of red paint. We planned on painting her when we bought her - at the moment the Kombi is tan, silver, and blue - with the words "servicio escolar" scratched off the front and back. We have been pulled over 4 times now and got in our first car accident. Christian has gotten very good at talking with the police and has yet to be hauled off to the station house. (The accident wasn't bad, a taxi wanted to change lanes and drove into the side of our bus. The taxi was much worse off than our bus.)



Saturday we went on a hike with our Swiss friends Christian, Petra, and their son Jan. We took a taxi out to the middle of of no where, about a 20 minute drive. We found ourselves in a valley with the shrine to the Virgin of Chapi protruding out of the mountain side. Interesting and sad all at the same time. . . . 90% of all taxis in Arequipa have a photo card of this icon/doll in them or have her name plastered across the back of their car. We walk through fields and farm land along the river for close to two hours then made our way back to a street and then back to the city. Our friends took a bus back to our side of town and for some reason we felt like walking. We walked, all 7 of us, over 10 km in total, all the way back to the house. Dinner never tasted so good and bed was never such a welcome sight. It was a long but great afternoon.