Mothering Sunday involves an essential phone call home. Before we left God's Own Chosen Six Counties everyone said nothing would happen whilst we were away. They were mostly right. Sarah knows about eight people who have died in 16 weeks, but apart from that nothing has happened, apart from people falling out with each other and eventually speaking to each other again. No surprises there then, could have stayed at home for that! Still, my insatiable curiousity of others' lives means I thrive on news. If my family lived in the Crimea, then maybe it would all be more exciting. And its impossible to give a hug to your mum over a phone line. Still, no crises, always a bonus. Easier to cope with when I'm looking at a mountain from our hostel balcony and its 35C outside.
Sunday is our last day here, and begins with no breakfast, which is bad as we are starving. Up to the Plaza De Armas and into a little cafe we have been eyeing up for a few days. Breakfast is bread and spicy rice, which is sort of like being a student again (I'm lead to believe students eat things like this on Sunday mornings) but the Peruvian coffee is much better than Nescafe. I decline an alpaca steak as it is 10.30am. We do our present shopping, and I fear for the seams of my rucksack (just in case you all wonder later when and where we bought this stuff, ha ha). The Plaza de Armas is surrounded by touristy concessions, and although the restaurants are attractive, they are bound in by pruck shops. Fortunately, Peruvian pruck is also very attractive, as it almost entirely consists of woolen products or brightly coloured ponchos and tableclothes. In fact, it all looks like exactly what people think of when they think of Peru. Nothing too out of the ordinary here. If you like stripey cheesecloth trousers and bobble hats, and want to look like a hippie, BOOM! You're in Heaven.
We drop our stuff at the hostel, and whilst Sarah packs her rucksack, which takes some time, I head out and take some photos of the city. It's just too beautiful, we feel very happy here, and would like to stay longer or, unusually, come back. There are so many things to do here and the people are very friendly (although I am making allowances, given that this is a tourist hotspot). In a little bookshops I discover how Peru gets around the problem of expensive books, with little paperbacks the size of a deck of cards. Tiny text, sure, but at a quid a go who cares but optometrists?
All of this has been fun, and Arequipa is surprisingly awake for a Sunday in Latin America (once again you can see just how tourist-orientated this place is), but the day is about one thing and one thing only; learning to make chocolate. We sneak a quick dinner into us, delicious grilled pork chops, and make our way to Choqcoua, organic chocolate producers and all round good eggs. 60 Soles gets us a class for five of us, Sarah and I plus an English family who have lived in Buenos Aires for 9 years and are finally making their way back to Blighty. Horacio is our host, ex-lawyer and ex-professor (thrown out of his teaching post for having long hair, proving what a strange place Peru is), and now full time chocolatier. These guys source all their beans from the very north of Peru, from little cooperatives, and we get lots of photos on Powerpoint explaining how fragile cacao trees are, the fruit, the fermentation, and the tropical conditions needed for growth. Next up are fermented beans which we sort by hand, these are then roasted, before peeling the husks off and grinding down to a paste with a mortar and pestle. I give the two kids lessons in using the mortar and pestle, which I never expected to happen, and I win a big bag of cacao husks that shall be used for making tea. Mmmmm.
Next up, we add our cacao paste to hot water, chili powder and honey, and voila! Aztec-style hot chocolate (although honey is a luxury extra). Its delicious, if a little too sweet for me. Still, always wondered how it was done. Horacio tells us that, ironically, neither Mexico nor Peru have a big culture of eating chocolate nor drinking coffee. I am very surprised. The cacao bean is so importart to Peru that they have just minted a 1 Sol coin with the cacao pod on it. Full of delicious hot chocolate, we now sample some chunks of pre-made chocolate. It is easy to tell the difference between crap 30% cacao solid Nestle chocolate, and excellent 70% Peruvian single source no vegetable fats chocolate. Choqcoua make all their chocolate from cacao beans, the cocoa butter that comes out of them during the stone-grinding process, and unrefined sugar, as you cannot get organically-certified refined sugar. Their chocolate is excellent, and you all would have been getting some if I was not travelling through the tropics for the next 8 weeks.
We finish our evening making out own chocolate bars in little moulds and from a variety of additional flavours, like cinnamon or chili, peanut or quinoa. We don't get too much information about tempering the chocolate, but I'm guessing thats the sexy skilled bit that they like to keep to themselves. Still, our bars come out gloriously shiny and utterly delicious.
The sun is long gone when we exit at 9.30pm, and back at the hostel there's a party in full swing. We play some pool and eventually get chatting with a bloke whose family are from Donegal (strong English accent though) and a chap from South Africa who just didn't seem to give much of a damn about being in Peru six months longer than he was supposed to be. Backpackers fall into two categories: The first are 'seeing' South America in 3 weeks and flying from Rio to Cuzco, with a pure fortune in their pockets. The other half got here, somehow, and have nothing. We are in City #31, and all somewhere in the middle. We also do not look like hippies.
Sunday is our last day here, and begins with no breakfast, which is bad as we are starving. Up to the Plaza De Armas and into a little cafe we have been eyeing up for a few days. Breakfast is bread and spicy rice, which is sort of like being a student again (I'm lead to believe students eat things like this on Sunday mornings) but the Peruvian coffee is much better than Nescafe. I decline an alpaca steak as it is 10.30am. We do our present shopping, and I fear for the seams of my rucksack (just in case you all wonder later when and where we bought this stuff, ha ha). The Plaza de Armas is surrounded by touristy concessions, and although the restaurants are attractive, they are bound in by pruck shops. Fortunately, Peruvian pruck is also very attractive, as it almost entirely consists of woolen products or brightly coloured ponchos and tableclothes. In fact, it all looks like exactly what people think of when they think of Peru. Nothing too out of the ordinary here. If you like stripey cheesecloth trousers and bobble hats, and want to look like a hippie, BOOM! You're in Heaven.
We drop our stuff at the hostel, and whilst Sarah packs her rucksack, which takes some time, I head out and take some photos of the city. It's just too beautiful, we feel very happy here, and would like to stay longer or, unusually, come back. There are so many things to do here and the people are very friendly (although I am making allowances, given that this is a tourist hotspot). In a little bookshops I discover how Peru gets around the problem of expensive books, with little paperbacks the size of a deck of cards. Tiny text, sure, but at a quid a go who cares but optometrists?
All of this has been fun, and Arequipa is surprisingly awake for a Sunday in Latin America (once again you can see just how tourist-orientated this place is), but the day is about one thing and one thing only; learning to make chocolate. We sneak a quick dinner into us, delicious grilled pork chops, and make our way to Choqcoua, organic chocolate producers and all round good eggs. 60 Soles gets us a class for five of us, Sarah and I plus an English family who have lived in Buenos Aires for 9 years and are finally making their way back to Blighty. Horacio is our host, ex-lawyer and ex-professor (thrown out of his teaching post for having long hair, proving what a strange place Peru is), and now full time chocolatier. These guys source all their beans from the very north of Peru, from little cooperatives, and we get lots of photos on Powerpoint explaining how fragile cacao trees are, the fruit, the fermentation, and the tropical conditions needed for growth. Next up are fermented beans which we sort by hand, these are then roasted, before peeling the husks off and grinding down to a paste with a mortar and pestle. I give the two kids lessons in using the mortar and pestle, which I never expected to happen, and I win a big bag of cacao husks that shall be used for making tea. Mmmmm.
Next up, we add our cacao paste to hot water, chili powder and honey, and voila! Aztec-style hot chocolate (although honey is a luxury extra). Its delicious, if a little too sweet for me. Still, always wondered how it was done. Horacio tells us that, ironically, neither Mexico nor Peru have a big culture of eating chocolate nor drinking coffee. I am very surprised. The cacao bean is so importart to Peru that they have just minted a 1 Sol coin with the cacao pod on it. Full of delicious hot chocolate, we now sample some chunks of pre-made chocolate. It is easy to tell the difference between crap 30% cacao solid Nestle chocolate, and excellent 70% Peruvian single source no vegetable fats chocolate. Choqcoua make all their chocolate from cacao beans, the cocoa butter that comes out of them during the stone-grinding process, and unrefined sugar, as you cannot get organically-certified refined sugar. Their chocolate is excellent, and you all would have been getting some if I was not travelling through the tropics for the next 8 weeks.
We finish our evening making out own chocolate bars in little moulds and from a variety of additional flavours, like cinnamon or chili, peanut or quinoa. We don't get too much information about tempering the chocolate, but I'm guessing thats the sexy skilled bit that they like to keep to themselves. Still, our bars come out gloriously shiny and utterly delicious.
The sun is long gone when we exit at 9.30pm, and back at the hostel there's a party in full swing. We play some pool and eventually get chatting with a bloke whose family are from Donegal (strong English accent though) and a chap from South Africa who just didn't seem to give much of a damn about being in Peru six months longer than he was supposed to be. Backpackers fall into two categories: The first are 'seeing' South America in 3 weeks and flying from Rio to Cuzco, with a pure fortune in their pockets. The other half got here, somehow, and have nothing. We are in City #31, and all somewhere in the middle. We also do not look like hippies.
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