Another colonial town...
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2005
1
58
72
Trip End
Jul 13, 2006
Arequipa, Peru
Saturday, May 6, 2006
Arequipa is home to a the Santa Catalina convent, which until the 70s, the 400 nuns that resided inside lived in complete seclusion for hundreds of years. Inside the convent is a maze of beautifully cobbled streets, white washed buildings and is so huge, it itself resembles an entire town. We strolled through the convent for hours, amazed and blown away by the architecture and surroundings.
The city is also home to many of the best preserved mummies in the world and this is for the pure reason that they were frozen on the mountain tops right after death. Many of these children died as a result of Incan sacrifices to the gods ontop of the highest andean mountain in Peru and consequently were preserved, organs intact alongside many ceramic and handicraft treasures.
For the first time during my travels I experienced the displeasure of a serious case of food poisoning, which we are surprised didnt happen in bolivia. In this case, the culprit was ceviche, white fish marinaded in a mixture of lemon and spices and served with spanish onion and peruvian corn. Unfortunetly it was from an expensive meal of this dish at a pretty nice restaurant that specialises in the dish. A huge shame since we spent days previous eating ceviche at bargain base prices on the street and in markets without problems. As a result I spent the most horrible night of my life sleeping on the toilet, keeping sam up all night to babysit me. I dont think that I have vomited so much in my life. Disgusting. No more ceviche.
Luckily however, my little encounter with food poisoning has left me very skinny, so much in fact that i dont feel so huge compared to all the tiny peruvian girls anymore!
After that encounter we went on a short trip to the Colca Canyon, which apparently a Canyon twice as deep as the grand canyon. The canyon itself is abslutly spectacular set amongst lush green peruvian mountians, however the highlight, is visiting the canyon for CONDORS. We arrived early as instructed and were not dissapointed as we saw huge sweeping condors sail above our heads and into the canyon below. Apparently the condors that we saw were only baby, since they didnt have the adult wing span of up to 3m. Babys or not they were huge...
Sam spent the last two days in arequipa hiking up El Misti, a picture perfect volcano that shadows the town of arequipa. Its peak of 5800m, it is apparently a relatively accessible climb, since the climb starts at an already hight altitude. He describes the climb as bloody difficult, one because of the altitude, and two because of the constant volcanic ash terrain upward incine. I said that hes just complaining and making it sound tougher than it actually is. Sam gave me a dirty...
Instead of climbing misti, I spent a few more relaxing days in arequipa, watching plenty of cable, eating french crepes (at the alliance francais) and enjoying the sunset over the beautiful town.
One observation about peru that we are loving at the moment, is that Peruvians LOVe salsa and you cannot go down the street, or on a bus without hearing it. Much better than bolivian cumbia crap.
Another note, Shakira has this english song.. something about hips or something. Well she samples from my favourite salsa track and I was so happy to hear it the other day on mtv.. love the song. love my cable.
