We allow ourselves a slow start after our late night in on the bus from Nazca. Fortunately our city walking tour is not until 2 p.m.
Anyway, we take ourselves off after breakfast - armed with a map - to do some exploring of our own. First off we went to the Santa Teresa Convent. This 17th-century Carmelite convent is open to the public as a living museum. The colonial-era buildings are famed for their decorative painted walls and restored rooms filled with priceless objets d’art, murals, precious metalwork, colonial-era paintings and other historical artifacts.
Our next visit was to the Santuarios Andinos Museum in the Catholic University, but before this we came to the main Plaza De Armas which has some splendid buildings of the local white volcanic stone - sillar - including the cathedral; plus there are lovely covered walkways around the perimeter which provide welcome shade from the hot sun. It is a lovely day today but hot in the sun. The El Misti and Chachani volcanos are a backdrop to the city and the snow on their slopes reminds one that it is not hot all the time. In fact, once the sun goes down, it is decidedly cold.
At the museum one can see the mummy of Juanita - also known as the 'Ice Maiden'. In 1995, during an ascent of Mount Ampato (at 6380 m), Johan Reinhard, an American archaeologist and his Peruvian climbing partner Zarate (during an expedition financed by the National Geographic Magazine), found inside the summit crater a bundle that had fallen down from an Inca site when the ridge had collapsed due to the melting caused by volcanic ash that had fallen from the nearby erupting volcano of Sabancaya. To their astonishment, the bundle turned out to contain a remarkably well-preserved mummy of a young girl.
The museum exhibits were quite dull - especially after the wonderful Larco museum in Lima - but to see the preserved mummy of this 12 year old girl who was a human sacrifice to pacify the gods is quite challenging.
We had to be back at the hotel for our walking tour, so we set off quickly and after a quick lunch met up with Gloria who was suitably decked out in high-heeled platform shoes - this was not going to be a fast-paced walk! She had excellent English however and we had interesting chats with her about anything and everything you can imagine. She even took us to an alpaca clothing outlet store!
We had a walk around the nearby neighbourhood of Lazarus: narrow alleyways and nice well-to-do homes. We emerge into a peaceful plaza with a church: Plaza San Francisco.
We also visit La Compañía church - very beautiful exterior and attached cloisters. This 17th century Jesuit complex is made up of buildings constructed for religious and living purposes. It was designed in 1573 by Gaspar Baez and destroyed by an earthquake in 1584. The current structure dates from 1650. Inside there are 66 canvases from the Cuzco School from such artists as Bernardo Bitti and Diego de la Puente.
Along the way we came upon a religious procession in the Plaza de Armas which added excitement.
Finally we visited the Santa Catalina Convent. This cloister, built in the 16th century, is a huge complex of buildings that once served as a town within itself housing 450 nuns. Traditionally, the oldest daughters of Arequipa’s aristocratic families entered the convent in their early teens and spent their lives there, cloistered away. The convent complex has been beautifully refurbished.
We returned to our hotel to have a small rest and get ready for dinner at Chicha which is one of a string of restaurants owned and run by one of Peru's top chefs, Gaston Acurio. I had a duck stew and TOP a shrimp soup which is an over-simplified description of a what was a much more complex dish. We each had a dessert we didn't need and TOP's was quite a presentation that came looking like an enormous ball of chocolate but it collapsed spectacularly when the waiter poured hot chocolate over the top of it.
Love the pink/red presumably stucco walls in one photo and the sheen on the marble/tiled floor.
ReplyDeleteSlow down the two of you - you are exhausting me - more smelling of the roses!
ReplyDelete