I'm in Arequipa, taking at least one week of intensive spanish and staying with a host family. It's a very cool place... At 2300 mts high they say the sun is as strong and hot as in Africa, which they call "dulce calor." The light is pure and bright, and in the Santa Catalina convent, the main attraction of old city, with the walls painted azul and terracotta, bright red geraniums and silvery green succulents, snow capped peaks of the Sierras visible, it has to be one of the most photogenic places anywhere. Alas there isn't the hardware where I can upload my digital cameras here...

It's so true that time stretches in traveling. The first few days are great and you're a sponge absorbing everything around you. But the flip side... after a week in any place, you become blind to some of what you liked so much in the first place. After a week in Lima the pleasures all but disappeared for me; after a few weeks in Switzerland even the Alps became humdrum. Then you have to either move on or change perspective and learn to see new things, and it's easier to move on... so it's a bit of a curse too.