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Published: April 21st 2012
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The road from Punta Arenas to Arica has taken us the entire length of Chile, and now it really is time to leave. A scant few miles to the north of Arica lies the Peruvian border, and beyond that a vast new country to explore.
However, we're only going to be spending a few days in Peru - this time around, at least. While in San Pedro de Atacama, we booked flights to Colombia, at the very top of the continent. We then plan to swing southwards in a rough "C" shape, passing through Ecuador, and to visit Peru properly from around July. The reasons behind the rather odd itinerary are purely climatic - July and August will be a better time to do some hiking in the Peruvian Andes, which after the wonders of Patagonia we simply cannot avoid.
And so in five days' time we will be flying from Arequipa, Peru's second most popular city not far from the border with Chile, to Medellín in Colombia (although not in anything like a straight line, much to our chagrin). Our short stay in Peru will give us just enough time to visit Arequipa and some of its amazing
Plaza de Armas, Tacna
Quick stopover on the Arica-Arequipa journey. back-country.
We manage to dodge the anti-personnel landmines on the border and make it unscathed - and with yet a little more ink in our passports - to Tacna, the first city across the border. A couple of hours until our Arequipa-bound bus give us just enough time to poke around Tacna's central square - it's a remarkably pretty place for a border town - and sit down in a café for a quick drink. Given we're in Peru, one of us at least has to try the country's most famous drink: Inca Kola. Oh my goodness. Inca Kola - which I naively expected to be a local copy of Coke - is an utterly startling concoction whose shocking colour (which the adjective "lurid" grossly undershoots) is surpassed only by its intense and quite revolting bubble-gum flavour. I am certain it would be not be legal back home - it looks and tastes like there are enough additives in a small bottle to make an elephant hyperactive. Still, I'm glad I tried it once. And it
will be once.
Arequipa sits at an impressive 2,300 metres above sea level - it's climb, climb, climb all the way out
Do not adjust your sets!
Inca Kola - tastes as vile and artificial as it looks. of Tacna. We watch the sun set over a beautifully sculpted landscape and pull in to Arequipa after nightfall. The station is some way out from the centre of town and we have a room waiting for us just off the central plaza. We're both feeling a little bit edgy: Arequipa has a reputation as a bit of dangerous place to take a cab. "Express kidnappings" - where fake taxi drivers take their fares out to far-flung neighbourhoods, before holding them there while their mates happily use cash machines to empty bank accounts - are apparently a serious problem here. Criminals even hire real taxis to do this. Yikes! Fortunately it's possible to ring up a reputable company for a cab... Several Arequipeños we talk to insist the problem isn't as bad as some people make it out to be, and we certainly don't have any problems for the duration of our stay.
Dodgy taxis or no dodgy taxis, Arequipa is a beautiful city, overlooked by the ominous cone of the 5,800 metre El Misti volcano. Nicknamed
La Ciudad Blanca, many of its ancient buildings are constructed out of
sillar, a type of white volcanic rock - foremost among
these is its stunning cathedral, dominating a huge and handsome cental square. With its palm trees, fountains, hawkers and shoe-shiners, the square buzzes with activity in a way we haven't set yeen in South America. It is distinctively
Peruvian.
Arequipa is also famous for its vast Dominican convent, the
Convento de Santa Catalina, which occupies a large portion of the centre, effectively a walled city within a city. A wander through the convent - several hours are necessary to appreciate it properly - is a fascinating way to spend an afternoon. The convent, founded in the late sixteenth century by a rich Spanish widow, was perhaps the religious equivalent of an expensive private school: only the daughters of the richest Arequipeños were allowed in (a hefty donation, or "dowry", securing entry). Once ensconced inside the convent the nuns lived what must have been a life of relative luxury - fine china, furniture and fabrics adorn many of the cells you can visit - away from the hustle and bustle of the city. To the modern visitor it certainly seems to have been rather a cushy lifestyle. As is perhaps inevitable for such a place, rumours of scandalous behaviour (pregnant
nuns, nuns selling their nice comfy cells to other nuns, the usual stuff) surfaced and in the late nineteenth century a strict troubleshooter-nun (I love the sound of that!) was sent over from the Vatican to clean Santa Catalina's act up. Presumably she succeeded, and life in the convent continued in absolute isolation until the middle of the twentieth century, when it was opened up to the outside world. The convent is still home to a religious community, albeit one much smaller than in centuries past. With its vividly-painted walls, twisting passageways and named streets, the convent is quite an extraordinary place.
Having spent a day or so exploring Arequipa's engaging ancient centre, we have enough time before our flight to Colombia to make an excursion to the city's famous back-country, a place of deep canyons and soaring condors. Colca Canyon awaits...
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