Adventure of the month

The next stop on the Gringo Trail is the so-called "White City" of Arequipa. It is not named, as some may suspect, for its veneration of the coca leaf, but for the sillar,or white volcanic rock which was used extensively in the building of the city. The city founders did not have to go too far to find this sillar, since the city lays in the shadow of three volcanoes, El Misti, Chachani and Pichu Pichu. (Interesting note: the Quechua or indigenous language does have a plural form, so if you wanted to, say, talk about more than one peak, or "Pichu", you would just say the word twice, thus "Pichu Pichu".) The presence of this trio quietly provides two things: constant danger of volcanic eruptions and really great views from virtually ev...