Exploring Arequipa
Exploring for me is gathering the essence of a place, this includes places that some people may find irritating, annoying or not worth seeing. Well, I am here to experience the world in all its diversity and nuances. Here I provide you with my best shots from exploring the Peruvian town Arequipa - one of my favorite places of the world.
The fences of the neighourhood
Spiked walls for security
In my first days in Perú I was quite disturbed about seeing a lot of spikes, fence and barb wires. Now I think it looks worse than it is. Here are some impression right from the road about Peruvian security measures. In Peruvian towns it is common that certain areas are locked during certain times, usually these areas are also guarded. I never experienced any problems, although it can be quite irritating if you see it the first time.
Bridge Crossing
The Eiffel bridge oneway today
If this bridge looks familiar this might be due to the fact that this was built by Eiffel - yeah the same guy who built the huge tower in Paris also known as Eiffel Tower ;). This bridge is really interesting, it is really long. Yet, nowadays it is kinda funny and maybe a bit unpractical. From far away it looks really impressive - and it still is - but when you stand on it and realize that it is one way for cars, well yeah… not that practical. They view from there is great, I could take pictures of housing areas I usually would not dare to walk into.
Working Peasants
I also discovered some peasants working near the roads, they had a cute dog “watching” the area. I really liked this sideroad. The first time I went down it, I was a bit scarred and then there appeared several eagles. Later on I discoverted the peasants and could take some of my favorites shots.
Men at Work
Later on I headed back into more urban areas. There I found a large road, which I had to follow. From a bridge a saw a repair shop. They took care of a police car, as you can see from the picture the police is armoured. I took some shots of the workers to capture such an authentic situation first hand. Then they registered me and began waving friendly, hence I took some more shots. I prefer honoring the hard-working people with my time and attention, than museums or statues.
After I went along the large road up on a hill, I discovered that this was one of the local breweries.
Here is a video with more photos from Arequipa:
