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Arequipa is the second city of Peru and surrounded by volcanoes all round. In fact the city is even built of sillar, a volcanic brick, which is a beautiful pearly white colour and sparkles in the sunlight. The city has a very European feel with a beautiful main plaza, Plaza de Armas, surrounded by beautiful white arches on all sides and with a fountain and trees throughout the square.
Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world and double the depth of the Grand Canyon, is close to Arequipa and we took a trip out to see it. The Colca Valley is inhabited by two sets of indigineous people, the Collaguas and the Cabanas (you can tell them apart by their hats nowadays but previously they used to deform the heads of their young to make the tribes distinguishable).
We stayed in a tiny little town called Yangue, where our hostel came complete with a very friendly baby llama. The entire areas is covered in Incan and pre-Incan terraces which the locals continue to cultivate making the whole place a pattern of different colours. We did a three hour trek taking in some local ruins and ending in the hot springs for a well deserved rest. That evening we were looking forward to a nice hearty meal but instead our hostel served us plain pasta, as in spaghetti with nothing at all on it - I mean we´re used to basic but this was ridiculous!
The highlight of the trip to the canyon was seeing the condors cruising the sky in the early morning. They are such graceful birds, no flapping of wings for them, they just angle their tail or wings to catch the thermals and glide elegantly. It was really peaceful watching them and amazing to see these huge birds at such close quarters.
On our way back to Arequipa our bus was stuck behind a local funeral complete with a brass band. The pall bearers were actually dancing with the coffin on their shoulders and twirling it around in the air. Apparently when someone dies in the local community they are happy as their belief in the after life is so strong.
Santa Catalina Convent is a Dominican convent which is essentially a city within the city of Arequipa. It occupies 20,000 square metres right in the centre of the city, in other words its huge! It´s amazing to wander through the streets of the convent and to see the opulence which the nuns used to live in, they each had their own rooms, kitchen and often maids! For their daughter to join the convent a family had to pay a dowry to the convent, and the dowry was equivalent to US$50,000 today, ensuring that only wealthy families could afford to have their daughters join. Apparently each nun had between one and four servants or slaves, and the nuns invited musicians to perform in the convent, gave parties and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. They must have missed the part about vows of charity! In the end the Vatican got word of the extragance and sent a Dominican nun to reform the monastery and she made huge changes, freeing the slaves and introducing shared lodgings.
However as it was a cloistered order once they took their vows they never left the convent again and could only communicate with the outside world through a grille. 450 people once lived in the convent but now only about 20 nuns reside there tucked away in one corner of the convent and not in contact with the outside world. It´s an amazing place to visit and an oasis of calm within the city.
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