Arequipa
Trip Start
May 22, 2008
1
10
15
Trip End
Sep 05, 2008
Arequipa,
Peru
Monday, August 11, 2008
Arequipa Plaza de Armas
The main square has the beauty and contrast of palm trees set against the main Cathedral, while there are snow-capped mountains (actually dormant volcanoes) that create a amazing background. I hungout in and around Arequipa (language school, Colca Canyon & misc city fun), until August 8. The city is great & if I had more time -- & probably more money --, I definitely would have stayed longer!
Arequipa Plaza at night with Jody
I decided to do one more week of language school to put just a bit more formal effort into improving my Spanish. Set in the lovely garden of the hostel, I had 4 hours of individual lessons for 5 days; the school was great & the lessons were definitely a good choice. I was blessed again to meet some really great people & several of us ladies took off for a 3 day/2 night hiking trip to Colca Canyon.
night out in Arequipa with group from Colca
Colca is the deepest canyon in the world & is about 5 hours away from Arequipa. We had an amazing trip & I took so many photos that I have made Colca a separate journal entry - so definitely check that out! Our guides were really great & we all went out one night when we got back to Arequipa. Those photos are mixed in here. Needless to say, we all had a really great time together!
night out in Arequipa with Colca guides
When not in school or at Colca or out having fun in Arequipa with the chicas and guides, I did a bit of touring around the city. I did a half day city tour that took us around the main square & some of the older parts of town, as well as outside of town to several beautiful miradors (lookout points) from which to view the mountains (there are lots of mountains in Peru, really everywhere you could say except the coast & the Amazon), the river & back to the city.
8-In & around Arequipa
We had a great half a day to visit the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, which is a cloistered covenant -- still in use by about 2 dozen nuns today -- that was built in the late 1500s. As with most of time in Peru, everything seems to look so much better set against the fabulous clear blue skys that I have experienced for about 90-95% of the time I have been here, but I think the multi-colored walls of the Monasterio were particularly striking.
Santa Catalina Monastery
The Monasterio is like a small town almost, with multiple streets & extensive buildings. Only the daughters of the wealthiest families were accepted into the monastery, where they lived a life of seclusion & dedication to the church, but also had extreme wealth and multiple servants until the Catholic church put an end to that excessiveness in the late 1800s.
Not sure what else to share about Arequipa, it really was just really lovely! By far the highlight was the weekend trip to Colca Canyon, so definitely check out that entry! Cheers!
