Arequipa is not just known as Peru’s second city but as Ciudad Blanco – the White City. We’d seen the glorious main square, lit with dusky yellow last night, but it’s in daylight that its nickname is properly revealed. The heart of the old city is built with the local white volcanic stone, and our hotel is no exception; the al fresco breakfast outside our suite is taken in the stone courtyard.
Waiting for us in the reception is our guide for the morning, Hildana, a rather peculiar woman who after a couple of hours causes Coman to complain, “She’s doing my head in!” She’s accompanied by a driver called Monica and provides a constant commentary in a strange accent, detailing first that Arequipa has two meanings in the local languages. In Quechua the translation is, “Yes, we stay here” (apparently spoken by the Inca emperor Pachamama) and in Aymara it means, “The place behind the mountain.”
Chilina Valley
She takes us first to a viewpoint above the Chilina Valley to talk about the local agriculture, and discuss the volcanoes we see before us, and then back to Yanahuaura to show us the intricate mixed baroque façade of a church we’re not allowed to enter and then the ‘Mirador Of Yanahuara’ five arches through which is framed a beautiful view of Arequipa. We snap away, with Hildana insisting on taking photos of us in front of the volcanoes. Eventually she manages a usable one.
Back in the colonial heart of the city we visit the Iglesia San Francisco where she uses a mirror glinting with sunlight to detail the incredible sculpted doorways with their mix of Inca and Catholic symbolism. Inside Hildana shows us a copy of the guinea pig Last Supper painting we saw in Cusco and then takes us into La Capilla de Saint Ignacio de Loyola, also known as the Sistene Chapel of Arequipa. It is an eye-catching space, covered floor to ceiling in colourful, decorative painting, depicting birds and colours of South America alongside Christian motifs. It really is quite spectacular… but cameras are not allowed!
There’s no such restriction at our next stop, the mind-boggling Santa Catalina monastery. A convent dating back 400 years, it’s a town within a city, a really remarkable commune where wealthy nuns lived in their own individual houses with servants, living a spiritual life within their own streets and squares. Poorer nuns shared houses or often became the wealthier nuns’ servants, and for many women they were enrolled by their families at the age of 12 (it was either that or marry some middle-aged monster) and they never, ever left the convent again.
Mirador of Yanahura
In the 19th Century the Catholic Church eventually forced the nuns to live a traditional communal, cloistered life of poverty and equality and some 20 nuns still remain in a hidden part of the convent. However the whole vast complex is quite beautiful, and amazing in its historical detail. It opened to the public in 1970 and is genuinely one of the most unique places we have ever visited.
Hildana leaves us to be guided by one of the permanent staff of the convent, and we are joined as we wander round by a couple from Chicago – Mike and Sarah. They are in their mid-70s but Sarah looks a good 20 years younger and is rocking a fashion sense another 20 years below that. Her secret, she tells us, is her Mexican childhood, and she and Mike have spent many years living in exotic and dangerous locations around the world. While she is fabulously preserved, Mike is creaking at the seams a little more, returning from an extended visit to the bathroom to announce rather too loudly to Sarah that his latest efforts had produced, “nothing, just a lotta gas!” Oh dear.
Santa Catalina monastery
After our visit we head back to a glorious antiques emporium we had poked our heads into last night, intending to buy a bronze door-knocker that Coman had been particularly taken with, but sadly realise the dimensions don’t fit our front door. It’s a real treasure trove of wonders, chiming perfectly with our own artistic tastes, and we can’t leave empty handed. Fortunately it has huge amounts of colourful textiles including the perfect runner for our dining table, so yet another souvenir goes into our, by now bulging, suitcases.
Outside the antiques shop is a little courtyard with a cocoa shop (we purchase coffee beans and a bar of dark chocolate) and a restaurant called Les Gringos, which serves vegan sandwiches and, somewhat surprisingly, Iron Maiden’s Trooper beer. We opt for a chilled white wine instead, the day sunny and warm - perfect for a cold sauvignon.
We have three more hours until Hildana and Monica are due to meet us again and transfer us to the airport, so we head to the Museo Santuarios Andinos to see the mummified remains of Juanita. Discovered at the summit of Mount Ampato volcano in 1995, after 500 years entombed in ice, she was sacrificed by the Incas to appease the volcanoes. Dressed in elaborate finery, her extremely well-preserved body, clothes and artefacts have provided a wealth of information about the life of the Incas; details we are shown in both a tour and a filmed documentary before we are allowed near the temperature-controlled room that now houses her body. It’s pretty macabre.
Lunch at Les Gringos
We head back to the hotel, via a quick look around the Cathedral, collect our bags and meet Hildana and Monica once more. This time however, Hildana redeems herself as when we arrive at check-in, the women behind the desk insist that our bulky mirror, purchased in Pisac, must be checked in to the luggage hold. We point blank refuse but they insist that the security guards will never allow it into the cabin, so Hildana after much back and forth comes with me to the security gates and explains the situation.
The security guards themselves couldn’t give a monkeys and say of course we can take it on the plane with us, and so we say farewell to Hildana and somehow manage to transport the large gold mirror safely to Lima, and ultimately all the way to London, without damaging it…. which is more than can be said for the vase I bought in Cusco which needs gluing back together again when we arrive home, despite being incredibly well padded in our luggage. You just can’t trust those baggage handlers!
Sadly our flight to Lima is delayed and it’s gone 10pm before we arrive into the capital. A new guide, Rodolfo, meets us with the same driver as before at Lima airport to transport us to another new hotel for our final night in Peru. Thankfully our late arrival means there’s far less traffic on the roads and we zip along the coastal bypass, past Miraflores above us, and turn off for the Barranco district, where the incredible Hotel B awaits us!
