Arequipa, Peru

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Arequipa, Peru's second biggest city, is a nice spot. It's called the "White City" after the sillar rock used to make its older buildings. We stay in the Casa de Sillas. It's comfortable and the staff are very obliging. The Plaza de Armas is a good starting point for a walk of the city and has a couple of restaurants on balconies overlooking the main square. It's also a good vantage point for the Valentine's Day celebrations. There are musicians and mime artists and hundreds of people, carrying heart-shaped red balloons, fill the square.

We visit the Monasterio de Santa Catarina. Founded in 1580, at one time it was home to 400 nuns, alot of them daughters of well-to-do Spanish families. The convent is on a grand scale (20,000 sq mtrs), complete with streets named after Spanish cities. Alot has been invested in its restoration. The bright pastel exteriors and well preserved kitchens, sleeping quarters and reception rooms suggest that it was a pleasant enough place to be a nun. It turns out that the vow of poverty was interpreted fairly loosely here - each nun had up to 4 servants and would often have parties in the convent. The good times came to an end when the Pope of the time sent the hardline Sister Josefa Cadena to put an end to the silliness.

The Museo Santury is also worth a visit. Alot of the exhibits are to do with the child sacrifices offered up by the Inca people to appease their gods. Apparently the most beautiful girls would be chosen early in life and taken from their families to be prepared for their terrible destiny. A bit like Pop Idol really. If any of the local volcanies started spewing, this was the cue for a child sacrifice. The belief was that the girl would become a deity after being sacrificed so the girls must have been pretty chuffed. The main exhibit in the museum is Juanita, a child sacrifice who was found only a few years ago, preserved in the ice atop Nevado Amputo. Juanita is not on display between January and April but there is a substitute child sacrifice, Cerita, who stands in for her. If they are all Inca goddesses now, Cerita must be a bit peeved that she is only a second-choice sacrifice.

If you want to see photos click here.