The Road to Arequipo


The kitty litter gets more interesting when it is juxtaposed with El Mar Pacifico.  I have been following the coast for about 2,000 kilometers, but the ocean is always out of sight, except for the odd glimpse in the distance.  Today I chose to head for Arequipo and the world's deepest canyon instead of Machu Pichu.  A few kilometers out and I was right beside the ocean for most of the way.  I stopped here in Aticlo, about 300 km from Arequipo.

This may be why the road stays away from the ocean :-)  Actually for most of the way there was very little sand, mostly kitty litter.  The next picture was taken by setting the camera on the ground on a typical spot, thousands of kilometers of this, it looks like those mars pictures.  

I have been trying to be polite about the food in Central and South America, but the truth is I don't really like it that much, overcooked and bland.  Peru will change all that.  Along with the pretty girls, Peru also knows how to cook tasty meals, the ingredients are the same, it just tastes better.

Aticla has a great beach,  but it is probably not safe for swimming, huge waves rolling in all day, that I imagine would have surfers drooling.  However this is a working beach, the local people collect seaweed from the rocks which is laid out to dry, then bundled and shipped off in trucks.  Seaweed (brown algae) is an important ingredient for many food products, including ice cream.







Strolling along the beach I came across the skull of a dolphin.


More pix here; https://photos.app.goo.gl/mPGHV6hWj1pwgsUCA


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