AREQUIPA, Peru - 2nd & 3rd September

2nd September, Saturday - Got into Arequipa (Quechua for "OK, let’s stop here") at around 6am, into a well designed Terra-Puerta, where all the buses "docked" in. On the approach to Arequipa, we saw these four volcano tops covered in snow, looming up from the distance and expected them to be left behind as we moved closer to the city. Even more remarkable is that they remained ever more in view and dominating, when we were in the city. The four volcanoes are Misty (rising up 5800m perfectly conical in shape and still active), the expansive Chachani to it's left (supposed to be the skirts of Misty's wife), to the right the many peaked Picchu-Picchu (meaning Peaks in Quechua - what else?) and Ampato (6380m). The volcanoes in the background, snow topped, and the white volcanic building stone called Sillar, give Arequipa (2400m), the 2nd largest city in Peru, a unique appearance.

Ladies from the tourist office met each bus and handed out city maps to the passengers, and later within the bus terminal, we got more information from a tourist info Kiosk, on the city, hotels and the cost of the taxi to the hotel we wanted. Quite well organised. Got a very pleasant taxi driver who took us to the hotel we certainly liked. One mistake not to make again is to tell the taxi driver that you do not have a booking at the hotel, as when you get there, he immediately runs into the hotel before you and pretends he has recommended the hotel, and then later asks the hotel for a commission. This sends the room price up a bit. The first hotel we wanted was certainly unrealistic in price and out of our budget. After a search with the taxi driver, we went to another one of our choice: the Casa de Sillar. The entire house was made of Sillar, the volcanic rock).

Casa de Sillar is run quite efficiently by five very pleasant young ladies, all of whom are also in University. The owner of the hotel is quite accommodating regarding their routine, letting them work part nights and part day. Monica who has a year to go with her teacher's degree was the most friendly & helpful and got us a chapel-like room overlooking the street. The place has a great open kitchen (for self catering) and a garden, so Rossini went shopping right away for breakfast stuff. People (at the shops) were extremely friendly and personal.




After a quick breakfast we left the room almost immediately. Went past the San Francisco Church & Convent, and straight to the main plaza. Letay is certainly impressive in how she keeps up with us, after an all night on a bus. She does complain about walking but still does walk as much as we do.





The Arequipa plaza is a pretty place, with a brilliant garden & fountain in the middle, surrounded by buildings on three sides, and a huge cathedral on the fourth - the volcanoes rise up in the backdrop behind the cathedral. All these buildings are built in Sillar.

The buildings around the plaza are double-storied with large arches on both the floors - most of them had restaurants on the first floor balconies, and almost all serving the same kind of food at around the same price. The only deciding factor on which restaurant to choose was probably the colour of the tablecloths.

Went into the cathedral, which was quite impressive, especially the large pipe organ, ...and watched a wedding.



Walked a block off the plaza to a Museum that houses "Juanita" in a building with a pleasant courtyard, . Juanita is the name given to a young Inca maiden 12-14 years old, found sacrificed and buried at the top of the 6380m volcano - Ampato, some 500 years ago. Her frozen, well preserved body was discovered in 1995 after one of the neighbouring erupting volcanoes melted the snow cap, exposing her. Since then 3 to 4 more bodies were also discovered in the area. The exhibition is very impressive, starting with a documentary of the discovery with a recreation of the long journey up the mountain of the Inca priests, the girl, and all the entourage of help carrying with them all that she was to be buried with. Just their climb up this steep volcano, over 6000m high, in sandals, with heavy loads (physically and emotionally) was more than impressive. The exhibition of all the artifacts, and clothes that were found with her, ended with actually seeing her, still maintained in a frozen state, kept behind a glass case. No photographs were allowed in the museum.

After lunch on the balcony overlooking the plaza, where a young boy played the Beatles' "Yesterday" on the pan flutes amongst other Andean tunes, we went to arrange a 2-day trip for the Colca Canyon. There we also met Davide (from Italy) again and Emma & Simon (from Australia). Planned to meet Davide in the Plaza for dinner, then went back to the room to rest a bit and for Letay to relax, read & draw.



Deepa was not feeling too well so she had nap. Rossini who could not stay too long in the room decided to walk around the city and visited the market, the Iglesia la Compania and also an impressively sculpted adjoining plaza.











At 7.30 we went to the main Plaza again which was as usual, as many other plazas at night, extremely alive. Newly married couples walked around being videoed and photographed. There was a mix-up with the time with Davide and we did not meet for dinner. We instead , after looking for a suitable restaurant, ate at a Chinese fast food place. The food was not bad at all.



3rd September, Sunday - Not an early start at all today. Had tea on terrace which had great views of the mountains and the city. Later had breakfast out in the central garden and only ventured out at 12 noon.

We visited the main tourist attraction of Arequipa - "The Santa Catalina Monastery", built in the 16th century as a convent , which housed almost 200 secluded nuns and three hundred servants, now a brilliant historical museum since 1970. The Monastery when built, was funded by the viceroy Toledo and a wealthy woman named Maria de Guzman, who later joined the convent with her sister and donated all her riches to the community. It comprises of an enormous complex of cloisters, rooms, courtyards, tiny plazas, a cemetery, a church and a laundry area - a township of its own. We took a guide - Sylvania, to show us around this wonderful convent and she was very knowledgeable and described every area and building with a lot of interest. The place is very peaceful as it must have been in it's time.

The history of the place captures the heart. The young women who joined the convent to be nuns were only taken from wealthy families, aged between 12-14 years.
They were to bring a dowry of a specified amount equivalent today, to 30,000 dollars and come with their own possessions of just 25 items each person. Most often in would be the second daughter (The 1st one was married to have an heir, the 2nd (boy or girl) joined the church, the third married to a soldier and the last looked after the parents and never married).Once accepted by the convent they were forbidden to see or be seen by outsiders. Parental visits were behind double screens. What was ironic was that in spite of having to lead such strict, routine lives they came with servants as they were all from very wealthy families. The servants lived in the convent and did most of their menial work for the nuns, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.


The Mother superior of course had the best living quarters. They did not leave the place even in death, as they would be buried in the convent cemetery.

The new convent where some thirty nuns now live is next door to this monastery and still live isolated lives and do not come out in public.




Had an awful pizza for lunch, that was smothered with cheese and more cheese and then took a collectivo to the main bus terminal to buy our tickets for Cusco. Once that was done Letay and I returned to the hotel while Rossini had a be in his bonnet to walk to an Eiffel designed Iron bridge (2kms long) , I don't know how many kms south of town. He just had to get photos of Misti and the other volcanoes from there. The girl at the tourist information warned Rossini that it would be a very long walk through some dangerous neighborhoods. He found out that this was not so dangerous and he thoroughly enjoyed the 3 hour walk and all the people he met and took a hundred (!!) photos.

For dinner later we went to the lively San Francisco street in town and had some great Turkish food. Packed one bag for the next days trip to the Colca Canyon.