We really liked Arequipa! We had a nice hostal with a lovely garden, WLAN and a lot of sunshine
And we even had a special Hostal Pet, called Pacos!
The historic city centre is very beautiful with colonial houses, painted in bright colours.
We walked through the city centre with its hundreds of taxis and traffic policewomen with nice gloves…
… a nice cathedral and a scenic lunch place.
Thereafter we went to a museum, explaining the culture of Inca’s human sacrifices. In 1995, an archaeologist discovered the mummy of an approx. 14 year old Inca maiden, sacrificed about 400 years before at the summit of the 6288m high Volcano Ampato and buried with ritual objects. The Incas believed, that this mountain is a god, controlling water and therefore agriculture (it does not rain often in most of the valleys, so the Incas got the water from the rivers, coming from the mountains). The body of this girl, now called Juanita, was preserved very well as the temperature at the summit of Ampato is about -20 degree Celsius.
A second cultural activity was the visit of an old nun monastery – an own town in the town of Arequipa – closed for 400 years to anyone from outside. About 30 years ago, parts of it were opened to public and so we could have a look at it. It looks really picturesque but it is in a way hard to imagine that the nuns – once in the monastery – never got out the walls again in their entire life. To communicate with the outside world, they used cells with “speaking wholes” in the outside wall, but could not be seen from the others, as the cells where much darker than the other side. Goods where exchanged through revolving doors – but again, no change to look inside…
Such kind of ovens are still used today to prepare empanadas, cakes and – yes – Pizza (Peruvians really love Pizza!)
In the evening, we treated ourselves and went to a gourmet temple, famous for its good meat. So Thorsten ordered a trilogy of meat: beef, alpaca and ostrich. Before even realizing it, the waitress wrapped a “Schlapperlatz” around him and he was too shocked to protest for a few seconds. But then, the dish arrived – 3 pieces of meat on a hot stone, still cooking like hell – and he was happy…
I had a superb ostrich in Roquefort Sauce…
On the way back, we passed again the main plaza with its nice cathedral.
By the way, Incas were not the hugest people and still the people here are quite small. Therefore, some doors are what we call Inca sized…
… but some are really huge
