Arequipa Hotel in The Lost Expedition

In Chapter 25 of The Lost Expedition, the conclusion to The Dream Rider Saga trilogy, Will, Case, Fader, and the other travellers check into a hotel in Arequipa, Peru where they will be staying as they acclimate to the higher altitude before moving even higher.

In that chapter, Case gives a description of the interior of the place where their rooms are located as follows:

A stone walkway led outside, past a swimming pool made to look like a rocky grotto complete with trickling waterfall. A short passageway ended in a metal gate behind which stood two soldiers, both of whom snapped to attention.

Diego spoke a single word. One soldier inserted a key into the gate’s lock. Passing through, the group entered another open-air courtyard.

To Case, she felt as if she’d passed into some fantasy world.

Stone-tiled steps led up to a cluster of doors directly ahead. To her left, a longer set of steps led up to a second area, separate and higher from the first. Beyond that, more steps rose to a third level. On each of the three tiers, the individual rooms sat at different angles to each other in a pleasing jumble.

The entire scene exploded with color. The doors were reddish-brown. The apartment walls were bright solid colors that varied throughout—brilliant white, deep-sea blue, glowing mustard yellow, rich peachy pink.

And everywhere…green.

Trees and thick bushes crowded the walkways and stairs throughout the courtyard, including tall palms whose broad, fern-like leaves sheltered the space from a starry night sky.

As readers of The Lost Expedition know, those three levels of the hotel end up providing an eerie parallel to the key mystery of the trilogy.

Anyway, I thought readers might enjoy seeing actual photos (shown here to the right) of the hotel that I based the above description on, the same one I stayed at in Arequipa on a 2016 cycling trip in Peru that provided a lot of my research for the books.

The photo with the two sets of stairs, by the way, shows the steps that Herrada is climbing when he encounters... Well, I won't spoil the story for those who haven't read it yet. You'll just have to check out The Dream Rider Saga here.