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On recommendation from The dutch couple, we head to Arequipa instead of direct to Lima:-
1) to break the journey
2) as it supposed to be a beautiful city
3) most importantly to avoid the dodgy Lima to Cusco road, not keen to repeat our La paz experience!
After a day on the bus and a queue and walk across the border, that seems to take so long we think we are going to miss our connecting bus, we arrive with 2 new friends in tow, Kate and Chris. A few random points to note about the bus, before I talk about what I ate for dinner...
* our hostess does a sales pitch to try and sell coca products.
* the locals get irate when the bus doesn't leave on time and start shouting "Vamos" Lets Go and banging on the windows, I felt really sorry for the hostess and thought they were going to turn on him at one point!
* the couple behind us had decorated their heads with coca leaves, I assume to help with headaches, they truly do believe they are magical over here and can cure about everything!
So on to dinner and firstly apologies to those pet lovers out there, but a local delicacy I felt I had to try it.....Guniea Pig! It came out on a hot stone flattened, but with head, teeth and claws still clearly visible. The legs and backbone is where the meat came from and sadly it just tasted like chicken, but was a lot more effort to eat. Poor Sharon had to sit next to be whilst I dissected it.
With a day to experience Arequipa before our trilogy of buses we make the most of it. A beautiful city indeed, with volcanoes which you keep getting glimpses of poking out behind the buildings, a very pretty plaza and plenty of places to watch the world go by. On recommendation again we head to Zig Zag for crepes for breakie and make a plan for the rest of our day. Sadly our plan soon gets foiled as we discover the markets, which are really good here and let the gift buying commence... Which only leaves times for the Santuarios Andinos Museum, which I'm so glad we went to very informative and well done. To start you get a 20 min video showing you how the artefacts displayed in the museum were discovered and then a guide takes you round 5 rooms to show you all of things that you have seen found in the video. It's so hard to believe that all of these things have been so well preserved for over 500 years.
I will try and recount the story accurately for you.... In 1995 the volcano erupted, causing hot ash and steam to spout from its' top which in turn melted the snow on top of the nearby volcano, this uncovered ground that had been buried since between 1460-90, a time when the Incas ruled in the area. They believed that the mountains/volcano's were gods and treat them well and they would return the favour. So they gave offerings in the form of human sacrifices and gifts at the top of the mountains in big ceremonies to save them from climatic catastophes, eruptions, avalanches etc. Having recently scaled a volcano myself its hard to believe that the Incas made it up with no proper equipment and only sandals strapped to their feet!! It was believed that only the most pure, pretty and healthy should be sacrificed, in effect children. Multiple bodies were found on this volcano and other have been found in Bolivia, Argentina and Equador but the best preserved is Bonita. It is thought that she was buried 15m under the snow shortly after her sacrifice, almost preserving her totally, teeth, fingernails, hair, body and organs are all totally intact, but her skin that was not covered by clothes shows signs of exposure. Actual cause of death was a blow to the head, which you can see in her skull clearly. Clothes, bags and artifacts were recovered too, some of these also in mint condition. Bonita was also buried with her umbilical cord, as this was believed to have healing powers. To cure illness the Incas used to take a piece of an umbilical cord and drink it in hot water. Interesting that with modern technology we are only just coming to the conclusion that the DNA from umbilical cords could be instrumental in healing, how were the Incas so clever that long ago??? Fantastic that the team went up the volcano and found Bonita when they did as she could have been buried again or destroyed by the elements and very brave scaling a volcano when the one next to you is erupting (this was the only way they would get to the top as it melts the snow and makes it climbable). A fantastic museum and a very sad story, a brave 13 year old girl Bonita would have known her fate as she was climbing, but would have believed she was going to live with the gods, become a kind of god herself, but she could have never foreseen that 500 years on she would be in a glass climate controlled case educating people on the way of the Incas, truly amazing!!
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