La Playa

We were invited by the owner of our house to her beach house for the weekend. We went having no idea what to expect, nor much about her because here in Arequipa she works 10 hours a day and we have never really gotten to know each other. We soon found out that she and her husband own the biggest rice company in the South of Peru. Here people live very simply and the only companies with big enough profit margins to afford things like commercials and billboards are those who sell milk or rice. Needless to say, we experienced a life in Peru very different from what we have come to know so far.

We stayed in her beachfront house. 67 houses were lined on the sand on a private beach, replete with security, lifeguards and beach-front bar. We spent three days lounging under the 10x10 bamboo canopy, coming inside for meals that her 2 full-time maids prepared for us. In the afternoons we sat with she and her friends on the second-floor patio while they drank and talked, being waited on hand and foot. Their 16 year old daughter loaned us her cuad to drive up and down the miles of sand under the sunset. What an experience!