Now that I am back in Peru (back to poverty, chaos, beggers, tricksters, things that are the opposite of what they say they are, dust, and dogs), daily life is a lot more of an adventure than it was in Argentina. I must say, I actually sort of enjoyed the general ease of daily life in Argentina. But on the flip side, now my blog posts will probably get more exciting.

I feel like Peru is like that puzzle where there are two doors and one always lies and the other always tells the truth, except sometimes both doors lie.

But despite all that confusion, I managed to buy a new phone! Including the country code, my number is 005154975762807. You might also be able to call at 0051975762807 (thats a slightly shorter version.) The good thing about getting my phone stolen is that my old phone was way too technological for me anyway -- now I am back to a contraption that I can handle.

I am staying at my friend Michel's parents' house. Arequipa is a desert and it rains so little here that some houses forgo having a roof, but this one is partially roofed. The house is basically several square concrete rooms on two stories, and the rooms on the second floor are connected by concrete slab walkways and ladders. Michel's room is red, yellow, green and pink. There is a loud loro (parrot) named Lorenzo. This house is awesome actually -- there's even hot water!

Michel and I went climbing at a local crag yesterday. Today and tomorrow, he has to guide some Germans up a new route on the biggest mountain around here, so I am left alone to traipse around. Traipsing around Arequipa today was fairly exhausting. Too. Many. People! There is a big search going on in the Canon de Colca for a lost person. Michel is on the search and rescue team, so if by Tuesday they dont find the guy, then it's his group's turn to go look for a few days, and I will be going with. I'm excited to learn about search and rescue procedure, although the man has been missing for over a month, which means the condors probably got to him by now...

I will probably be in this part of the country for about two weeks. Michel and I are organizing a climbing workshop for women, with the aim of getting Peruvian ladies interested in doing something other than having babies. After that is done, I want to go north to Huaraz.

I am having trouble giving up my Argentine accent. I know that if I made an effort to talk like the Peruvians, I could get it in a day's time. But to be honest, I like the Argentine accent, and it's so nice to be able to call someone "che" when I can't remember their name, and being as I'm white, it's not like I could blend in any better if my accent was more Peruvian. Whatever. Since Michel used to live in Mendoza, he gets kicks out of speaking like an Argentine too and so our conversations just go like "Che, viste, sos petiza, pero que se yo?" (Do my Argentine friends know that if they say petiza here, people will think they were born two centuries ago?)