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Published: July 22nd 2008
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National pride
Peruvian flags are appearing everywhere in preparation for their indepedence day, July 28th. Arequipa is a lovely town in the middle of Peru at a fairly high altitude (about 2,500m above sea level) which meant we had our first taste of travel at high altitute. At that point, we just felt a little more tired than usual and had a wee headache, fixed by drinking lots of water. Unless we had read up on it, we would have just put the symptoms down to general travel tiredness.
We had two major sights on our itinerary for Arequipa - the Santa Catalina monastery and the mummified remains of adolescent girl, Juanita - a sacrificial offering to the Incan gods made about 500 years ago.
I´m not a big fan of religious sites but we had heard great things about the monastery so we forked out the considerable entrance fee (about $15 each) and entered into a peaceful oasis in the middle of a thriving city. WE chose not to get a guide which meant the visit turned into a photographic expedition rather than a cultural/educational one but we still got the idea behind the sanctuary.
The actual churchy parts of the convent were the usual intimidating, dark and damp combination of architecture
Cutey pie
As with all city squares in Central America, pigeons are everywhere. The local kids love em. and art but the living quarters and gardens were magical - brightly coloured, peaceful and full of light. I feel that the nuns might´ve created these spaces in order to escape the dampening of spirit that that other sections of the convent emanated. It´s interesting that the two sides of spirituality can sit so (seemingly) happily side by side.
We also visited one of Arequipa´s most visited muesums to see the mummified remains of Juanita. After an hour tour of the relics found in site of the mummy we finally came to a dark and humid room where a small, elevated case (kept at below zero temps to keep the remains ´fresh´) contained Juanita. She was TINY! Sitting up in a kind of foetal position, the tiny girl still had skin, hair, nails and all her clothing intact. It was simply amazing! Scientists of all calibers and kinds have poured over her remains, speculating wildly of course! It was mind blowing to see a real human who was so life like in her death, over 500 years old. Mindblowing and also really quite creepy.
We had a delicious lunch overlooking the main square of Arequipa where I managed
to read almost all of the menu (in Spanish) but compeltely butchered the actual ordering. I have discovered that I am quite good at reading Spanish and absolutely rubbish at actually speaking it. Not very helpful... Anyway, it turns out I ordered the local speciality: mince stuffed capsicums with Andean cheese. It was quite delicious, even if I didn´t mean to order it!
The streets of Arequipa are lovely - cobblestoned and lined with period buildings echoing the Spanish invasion. There are also little glimpses of surviving Andean (pagan) flourishes which reminds you of where you are. Everywhere you walk in the city centre are little lane ways bristling with coffee shops and bars. We followed our noses down one of these lane ways and quietly soaked in the weak winter sun and drank local beer (Doug) and a hot choc (me). While we were there, we were serenaded by a local panpipe band and yes, I bought their CD. I thought Doug was going to vomit with disgust but I LOVE IT. We also bought a painting by what we thought was a local artist but we now think was just a scam. Either way, we love the
Local protests
The protests that threatened to delay us in Nazca, ended up continuing throughout Arequipa. painting and that´s all that really matters!
Til next time!
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