Arequipa - Yanahuara - Sa Catalina

Flowers in the Monasterio

Entrance to Monasterio Santa Catalina

It starts to get light in Arequipa about 5am, but gets dark about 7pm, even though it is the equivalent of June here. This is because of the proximity to the equator.

We woke up early partly due to the light and partly due to our bodies still being on GMT. Our room is situated on a courtyard, surrounding a lush garden. Like many buildings in Arequipa it is only two storeys high, due to the history of earthquakes in the region. But saying that there are plenty of old buildings about, so they must build them well.

Breakfast was continental style: rolls, jam, very sugary fruit juice and coffee. We took it sat on the lawn in the sunlight. Also on the lawn was the hotel's mascot - a huge tortoise who zooms around the place.

For the first day, we decided to visit the Mirador at Yanahuara, which is said to avail good views of the city's three guardian volcanoes: Chachani,Misti and Pichupichu. Misti is a classic Strombolian volcano, perfectly conical and gives Mt Fuji a run for its money. It's the type of volcano a child would draw.

You can just about make out El Misti

We walked up the busy road alongside the River Chili up to Grau bridge. In a park by the bridge an alpaca was tethered, being used as a lawn mower. You could see perfectly round circles of short grass where she had been tethered on previous days.

The Mirador was not too far, and by it there was a church, again carved out of sillar. Unfortunately we have come in rainy season, and though it was bright and sunny in Arequipa, up in the mountains clouds were gathering and we could only get tantalisingly brief glimpses of El Misti and Chachani through the murk. (This happened last year in Chile too - until one day the cloud broke and there were volcanoes everywhere!)


Behind the Monasterio

We walked back down to the city and decided to visit the Manastario de Santa Catalina. This is a Dominican nunnery that is a city within a city. It still is home to nuns who live in isolation, but the most part of the site is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and open to the public.

Model of the Last Supper

The majority of the site is made up of a labyrynth of nuns cells. These were not single rooms, but three and four roomed dwellings with open kitchens and stairs to the roof.

Seemingly some of the nuns who lived here were rich and had servants, pianos and fine furniture. In a way, the way the nunnery was lain out reminded us a bit of Pompeii with its low buldings and narrow streets.

There was no electricity in the rooms, but all were light with light chimneys in the rooves. The streets were lined with potted geraniums.

We ate lunch in the coffee shop in the middle of the nunnery - omelette and more cheese laden crepes.

In all it took about three hours to explore the site, and its rooms and shaded streets gave some respite from the midday sun.

Exhausted we retreated to the hotel to have a rest and catch up with the blog. In the garden, Kevin managed to catch a brilliant picture of a humming bird as it darted between the flowers.

Once it went dark, we headed back into town for dinner. We ate at Mirador Misti, a rooftop restaurant behind the Cathedral. Kevin opted for pizza whilst Joan chose Rococo vegetariano, which was described as a typical Peruvian dish. The English translation of the dish gave no clue as to what it would be. It tuned out to be a spicy red pepper,filled with carrots and french beans in a bed of strange egg-like sauce and sliced potato. Interesting. It might have been a variation of Papas a la Huancaina which is in our guidebook ("an excellent and ubiquitous snack") and seems to be a staple sauce in Peru.

www.southamericanfood.about.com/od/saladsidedishes/r/huancaina.htm