Arequipa

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Hello

We took an all night bus from Nazca to Arequipa with Cruz del Sur. It was so uncomfortable that we barely slept. Made it to Arequipa by 7 am and went straight to the Bothy hostel. It is very relaxed with very friendly staff. We settled in for a few minutes and went to see Juanita the Ice Princess at the museum. There was no photography permitted but it was an amazing sight to see. An archeologist found her buried in ice on one of the mountains nearby and she is very well preserved. They found that she was sacrificed to the Gods by the Inca (I think) and she was only around 12 or 13 years of age. She was killed by a blow to the head. There were other figurines and such buried with her that was on display along with other finds that were found with some other child sacrofices too.
Next, we went to the Santa Catalina convent that was forced to open their doors around 1970. It was a maze of many rooms that the nuns stayed in along with beautiful paintings and figures. It was interesting.
We then booked a trip for the next morning to the Colca Canyon which is the second deepest canyon in the world with the Grand Canyon coming in fourth. The tour is to be a two day, one night tour with the highlight of seeing the Andean Condor.
For dinner, we decided to have alpaca meat and potatoes. It was not bad, a little salty. We were pleasantly surprised that we liked it okay. Time to go to sleep and prepare for the start of the tour in the morning.

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Photos

Convent
One of the rooms that nuns would live in.

Convent kitchen.
Macayla posing.

Painting found in the Convent
These paintings were recovered after they were painted over to hide them from the Spanish.

Convent Altar
One of many.