Another big city: Arequipa

After our Nazca flight, we had a great need to relax at our hostel prior to getting back on the road again. I certainly did, as it took a while for my stomach to calm down, after feeling a little queezy from the small aircraft flight. Luckily, I had heard about the risk of motion-sickness and so armed myself with a pill about an hour before the flight. It worked, I did not need to use the small plastic bag sticking out of the back pouch of the seat in front of me! I digress....

We (along with Claire and Stephen) took a Cruz Del Sur bus with very comfortable reclining seats and a foot rest (comparable to first class seats in an airplane) for only $55! Ok, so we did splurge a little and got the "executive" vs the "regular" seats. The ride to Arequipa was 8 hours long and included lunch and a snack. There was one negative, however: to Rakesh's and my horror, they played back to back movies from departure to arrival very loudly, through the main speakers of the bus. I thought I was going to go crazy! I asked the bus attendant, kindly AND in Spanish, if she could reduce the volume. She said "si, si", but did not do anything about it. Luckily, I remembered that I had a pair of earplugs in my bag! Ah, relief! 

We arrived in Arequipa, around 10pm, we said our goodbyes to Claire and Stephen with the hopes if possibly seeing them again, and then went directly to our hostal which was very close to the old square or "plaza". At that point,  Rakesh and I were feeling a little hungry. We ventured out to the square and found little to be open, except for a couple pizzerias! We chose one and sat next to a couple of professors, who were interested in where we were from. We got chatting and the one professor, gave us a recommendation for restaurant "Sol de Mayo" for typical Peruvian food. He also gave us his phone number and told us where he lived in case we needed any help!

The next day, we walked around the city of Arequipa. The 2nd largest city in Peru. It is surrounded by several mountains and volcanoes. One of them, El Misti (5822m), is a nice backdrop for cathedral in the main square "Plaza de Armas". Many of the buildings are, ofcourse, colonial. What makes these colonial buildings unique, however, is that they are built from volcanic rock "sillar". 

We visited the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a convent dated back to 1580. It's like a citadel in itself and maze-like with simple architecture and interchanging blue and orange walls. Many of the rooms that one could visit, looked very much the same after a while, but it was fun to walk around in and take pictures. There was also a chance to climb up some steep stairs to a chapel (closed) where we could see views of El Misti and part of the city from above (more kodak moments). 

We also visited our first local market, since arriving in Peru. Rakesh likened it a market in Bangalore, which I have also been to "K.R. Market". The market is somewhat indoors, and has all you could ever want, from produce, to meats, to cooked foods, to clothing and crafts. We bought some fruits (chicita bananas and figs) and sat down at a stall to share a freshly made mixed fruit juice (lucuma, mango, banana). Hhhmmm, so scrumdidliumptious! 

One our second and last day in Arequipa, we reserved a tour of the Colca Canyon. We, had hoped to be able to visit the Canyon without joining a tour, though we would have needed more days to do so. 

We decided to visit one more museum that was top on our list. The Museo Sancturios Andinos. This included a 30 minute  National Geographic documentary about the findings of various mummified bodies of children that were sacrificed. It was then that I realised that one of the bodies, was of a girl, "Juanita", that was found in 1995, and that I remember hearing or reading about at that time. She was named after the scientist who discovered her body on Ampato (6288m). These mummies are not like those in Egypt, but one's that were sacrificed on top of mountain summits, neighboring volcanoes that had erupted. The Inka's believed that an eruption of a volcano was equivalent  to a "mountain god" being dissatisfied. Therefore, the Inka's chose children with certain attributes to be sacrificed in order to appease the gods. The bodies were then "mummified" due to being exposed to the ice at such great heights. 

After watching the documentary, we were lead by a college student throughout the museum and was shown sacrificial artifacts and clothing of the children that were found. Last, but not, least we were lead into a darkened room where "Juanita's" body was preserved at an ice-cold temperature in an incubator!! The body of a girl who was sacrificed over 500 yrs ago!! Very eerie! A very interesting museum! 

Overall, Arequipa was fun to visit. I felt like 2 days was plenty, as again due to it being another big city, it was full of people and traffic!!