From Arequipa’s Hotel Fundador, I went out walking using a map given by reception that took me past a couple of the city’s monuments to the stately Plaza de Armas, which is what every main square in Peruvian towns is called.
It was striking. The cathedral and other official buildings that surround it are made from sillar, a white volcanic stone, giving the city the name Cuidad Blanca.
On the way to the square, I was surprised to pass a French-language bookstore located next to the local Alliance Française. Inside, I bought a thin volume by Patrick Modiano called Souvenirs dormants that I hadn’t read.
I began walking back to the hotel. Halfway up the hill, I stopped into a courtyard restaurant and ordered a pear salad and a chocolate banana smoothie, two things I’m not accustomed to eating. They both tasted good. The place had a stylized skull as a symbol and was called the Bar de Muertos.
Later, wanting a drink, I went down to a bar connected to the hotel. It was a bright place full of neon and with two large screens showing the same mix of uninteresting music videos in a range of styles. A couple verged on soft porn while others were styled like westerns and fantasies. I ordered a pisco sour and then what I concluded were chicken wings because they had the word Buffalo after the item. The waitress had described them as chicken arms.
Up in the room, I read a bit of Henry James and fell asleep only to be awakened about midnight by musical noise from the club across the street. The music finally ended and was replaced by the voices of people talking. This went on for some time until I finally got dressed and went down to the darkened lobby to find out where the voices were coming from. At 2:30 in the morning, the bar was still open with people inside drinking and partying. I told the night man that it was unacceptable. He must have called the police because a few minutes later, I heard a police car arrive, and the voices stopped.
March 9. After breakfast and a call to Kay, I went to reception and told the woman in charge about the night’s irritating noise. She said that a room that didn’t face the street might become available and that I could have it.
I asked her about a two-day tour to Colca Canyon, and she showed me what was on offer. I read the description and asked if I could go the following morning. I could, and the deal was settled.
My first visit of the day was to the enormous Santa Catalina Convent that was founded in 1579. It belongs to the Dominican Order and still contains sixteen cloistered nuns who will live there until they die. At its peak, it housed one hundred and eighty nuns, plus servants, orphans, etc., a total of five hundred.
The place could handle that many; it was truly enormous. I paid twenty soles for a tour in English that was well worth it. On my own, it would have taken me ages to find my way around its precincts and I would not have known what I was seeing.
The convent had at least three cloisters, and the lunettes that surround them on the inside walls had paintings of Biblical scenes meant to inspire and instruct.
Until the ecumenical reform in 1871, the nuns came from well-to-do Spanish families. They entered as children of twelve and received the instruction and training to become novitiates. At a certain point their families had to pay a dowry that amounted to four thousand dollars in today’s money.
They could furnish their cells with twenty-five items from Spain that included a chamber pot. And they had servants who cleaned and cooked their meals, etc. Three nuns could live together in a large cell. Their beds were always under arches to protect them in case of earthquakes, of which there were several. The cells I saw were furnished as they would have been at the time. Large chests contained their clothing,
and each cell had its own kitchen.
Nuns could bathe only seven times a year as seeing and touching the naked body was sinful. Only two nuns could bathe at a time with a curtain between them.
One room had seats along a wall pierced with lattice windows. Nuns could talk with family members and friends through the lattices without being seen. There were very few occasions when the nuns could leave the convent. Family funerals were one of these.
I was shown a beautiful small garden with a pine tree one-hundered-and-sixty-years old and some beautiful flowering plants. Roses predominated, but there were also examples of cantu, a shrub producing beautiful small flowers that hang upside down. The Incas consecrated the flower to the sun god. It is Peru’s national flower symbol.
Most of the exterior walls are painted red and renewed each year after the rains. Part of the complex has ‘streets’ with the names of Spanish cities like Toledo, Sevilla, and Granada.
A flight of steep stairs led to a viewpoint. I looked over the roofs of the city that has almost no tall buildings. Three volcanic mountains surround Arequipa but were obscured by haze.
The reforms of 1871 changed the convent in big ways. The nuns no longer had servants, and the convent was opened to Peruvian nuns. The large dowry was abolished. The convent supported itself by products it made and sold. It became the town’s bakery with big ovens that I viewed.
Another change was that the nuns ate together in silence in a refectory. One of their number stood in a pulpit and read to them as they ate. They also slept together in a dormitory.
I saw a large pit where the servants could bathe, two or three at a time, facing away from each other in the corners. They also wore some kind of robe, as they bathed.
I had never seen a convent or monastery of this size or visited one in such detail. It was a unique experience.
My second museum visit was quite different. Its name: Museo Santuarios Indinos. Its purpose: to showcase and explain the finds that archaeologists have discovered on the high slopes of the volcanoes that surround Arequipa.
The principal find, is the body of a twelve-year-old girl called Juanita that had been preserved in ice for five-hundred years. She exists today in a refrigerated enclosure kept at minus twenty degrees centigrade. She is in the fetal position she was buried in and is still wrapped in the remains of the shawl she wore when she died. The offerings found around her tell that she must have belonged to a high-ranking Inca family. She was sacrificed to gods of the sun and the air, possibly after some kind of natural disaster. She had died from a hard blow to the right side of her skull given by a priest.
After 7 o’clock, I went to reception, hoping to get a recommendation for dinner. The guy behind the counter understood little and knew less so I went out and took a look at the places near the hotel. There were several places open but none that I cared to enter. This seemed like a poor neighborhood. Finally, I came to a two-story establishment called Dr. Cho. The ground floor didn’t look like much, but upstairs was a restaurant with several tables. The music wasn’t too loud, and there were two dining couples. The waitress came and was welcoming and friendly. She gave me a menu that I didn’t understand, and when I asked about a chicken dish, she told me it was crispy and came with Chinese rice. I wanted a beer with it, and she pointed to a list that I didn’t recognize. She brought me a local beer in a bottle with a wolf’s head that tasted like certain Belgian beers of long ago, in that it was slightly sweet.
My food came and, as usual, there was too much of it. The fried chicken was all right, but the fried rice had no flavor. There were also French fries that were good enough but needed seasoning. The best part was the waitress who checked on me and was fun to talk to.
March 10. After picking me up at 7:30, the driver went to various hotels to collect others: three Spanish men in late middle age, a young woman from Taiwan, a single man from Brazil, an Italian-Swiss couple, and a Peruvian couple. Our driver of the large passenger van was Francisco, and Rosario was the name of our female guide for the two-day tour to Colca Canyon.
It seemed to take forever to get clear of the city. It’s big and spread out with few traffic lights. Instead, traffic is controlled by speed bumps.
The purpose of our tour was to learn about sites in mountain ranges north of Arequipa that contain several volcanoes, only one of which is active. Peru has four hundred volcanoes, one hundred and twenty of which are active. The three that can be seen from the city on a clear day are named Misti, Picchu Picchu, and the active one, Chachani. Some have caps of snow, which only falls during the rainy season, in what is called summer. Winter is much colder but dry.
Because we would be stopping at high altitudes that day, our guide requested that we chew coca leaves, packets of which we acquired at a shop a short time into our drive. I stuffed some into my mouth and chewed them to pulp, then I chewed some more. Rosario also had a small, thin bottle of something she called Aqua Florida. She demonstrated its use by putting a few drops into the palm of a hand and cupping her hands over her nose while breathing in deeply. I tried and was surprised at how strong was the effect. These methods were to alleviate the discomfort of high altitude on the body.
Rosario’s approach was to give us short lectures from time to time about things surrounding us or that we would encounter as we drove. The first of these was about the llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas.
We saw a number of vicuñas in the wild as we entered a national park where they are a protected species. I had never seen one before and was surprised at how long their necks are and at the shape of their head that somewhat resembles a camel’s. In fact, they belong to the biological family of camelids. They are pretty animals with brown and tawny hides.
To illustrate her talk, our guide passed packets of the hair of each animal to let us feel their texture. The vicuña’s is very fine and soft, so fine that it cannot be dyed. She stopped the van a one point so that we could take photos.
We drove a long way this morning and stopped at a rest stop named Patahuasi to use the toilet. Public toilets are plentiful enough, and all require a single sole to enter. Toilet paper is dispensed from a single roll outside the individual stalls. These are not fancy facilities.
I can genuinely state that the views of the mountains we were seeing, along with their terraced lower sides and the green valleys at their feet, were awesome.
Of many crops that are grown, potatoes and corn predominate. A lot of quinoa is raised, too. I was surprised to learn that Peruvians grow garlic, and that it seems to be mostly an export crop, to Brazil especially.
Our stop with the highest elevation this morning was at 4,910 meters or 16,109 feet above sea level. I took care to move slowly. I couldn’t tell if the cocoa leaves helped.
We stopped for lunch at a tourist restaurant named Urinsaya in the town of Chivay.
It had a buffet with several traditional Peruvian dishes. I began with a bowl of cream of spinach soup followed by small helpings of beet salad, fried bananas, pork, and a small stuffed potato topped with a sauce made from olives. I had my first taste of cuy or guinea pig. It came shaped as a tiny chop without much meat and had a pleasant taste.
I took a dish of red jello for dessert. I thought it surprising that jello is a popular choice in Peru. I also took a tiny piece of cheesecake topped with some kind of mint-green frosting. I drank water.
The weather had been splendid in the morning. However, while we ate lunch there was loud thunder, and it began to rain. There was no downpour, only steady rain.
The only plan after lunch was to drop us at our hotels. This was the kind of tour where we chose our accommodation based on cost. I remember there were at four levels of choice, and I chose the highest whose premium was about $80.00 above the lowest. I thought I would probably have a better room in Chivay where the hotels were located. I couldn’t have been more surprised when I was driven quite a way to a different town and to a place named the Colca Lodge. My first view of the lodge was from high above and I realized I was in for something special. The hotel’s amenities and service were far above average. It is a very special place with its own thermal pool. It was still raining when I walked a long way and down several sets of steps dressed only in my bathing suit and a terry cloth robe from my room. The air was quite cool but stepping into the pool I was immediately engulfed in its warmth. The only others in the pool were a charming Irish couple in their 70s. We hit it off immediately. They had planned to take this trip four years before when Covid intervened.
We stayed in the warm water talking for half an hour before heading to our separate rooms. Two hours later, I joined Paul and Aileen in the bar for drinks. They had already ordered dinner and invited me to join them. They shared a bottle of Medoc with me at the table. It turned out to be a wonderful evening that I’ll always remember. I hope Kay and I can visit them one day at their farm outside Dublin. We would all enjoy each other.
Monday, March 11. Stepping out of my room early onto the balcony, I was knocked out by the extraordinary view that encompassed the lodge’s gardens, the mountain in the background, and the river at its base. Peru’s rivers run fast; they are fed from snowmelt in the mountains. After a light breakfast, I readied myself to be picked up at 7 o’clock. Climbing up to the road, I saw that the others were already in their seats. I didn’t make too much of the Colca Lodge because I was sure that the accommodations were way above what the others had experienced.
We drove a short distance to the town of Yonque. As we arrived, we witnessed a group of women dressed traditionally and dancing in a circle around a fountain in the main square. They danced to recorded music blaring from a speaker and kept it up long enough for us to take photos.
At a viewpoint, there was a woman with a pretty alpaca with a garland around its neck. I handed my camera to Chris from Brazil, asking him to take my photo with the animal.
Our route this morning was lined with a particular kind of yellow flower whose petals resemble a daisy’s. They are called chiri chiri in Quechua.
The big stops of the morning were to view the Colca Canyon from two points. Getting out of the van at the first, we saw four condors, two of which were in the air above us. Against dark backgrounds they are not as distinct. As we arrived, Rosario played El Cóndor Passa on her phone.
Getting to the first viewpoint, we had to walk ten minutes over some rough ground. Because of my age, Rosario was concerned about my ability to walk, but I was fine.
Looking down into the canyon was a pleasure but no great thrill. Though very deep, it is fairly narrow, and we couldn’t see the bottom. In my mind it contrasted with our Grand Canyon that is wider and colorful. I explained that in Arizona, one can walk down in the canyon and even float through it on a raft. While the group chose to walk along a path to the next viewpoint, I chose to retrace my steps and get back to the van. Rosario must have phoned Francisco who met and walked with me for security.
At the second viewpoint, there were three persons dressed in condor costumes standing on the edge of a platform. We stopped there for thirty minutes, and I passed most of that time talking with Marco and his wife who had been introduced as Italians but were born and live in Switzerland not far from Geneva. Marco spoke some English, but when he learned that I spoke French, our conversation became easier. They are young, energetic, and live a happy life with jobs they like.
My last full day in Arequipa was March 13th. At breakfast on the top floor of the hotel, I looked across the roofs of the city to the mountainous, snow-covered volcano Chachani in the distance. There are almost no tall buildings in Arequipa, and I think at least part of the reason is that this is an active earthquake zone. I was reminded of that fact on this morning’s guided tour of the Cathedral Museum. The last earthquake early in this century damaged the cathedral, causing the large bell tower to collapse.
The Cathedral was a good choice. For one thing, we toured its enormous interior without others. Its architecture is neo-classical and felt very soothing after other Peruvian churches with their excessive Latin-American decor. The grandeur of this cathedral was enhanced by twelve large statues of the Apostles that were carved in wood and covered in white plaster. Each statue was identified on its base and stood next to one of the enormous supporting columns.
Near the high altar, was a pulpit remarkable for its size and details. It represented the word of God triumphing over Satan whose large image was carved at the base.
The most striking feature of the cathedral is the enormous organ at the rear. It stands twenty meters high and has one thousand three hundred individual pipes. I’d never seen a pipe organ as large as that one.
The highlights of the tour were the contents of a couple of rooms displaying the cathedral’s riches. These are beautifully wrought sacred objects in gold, silver, and precious stones. A couple are large and very heavy. One is taken out of the museum and carried abroad only on Corpus Christi Day. Otherwise, it is kept under glass. There are several crowns, including one representing the crown of thorns that Jesus was said to have worn at his crucifixion. These priceless objects were donated to the cathedral over the centuries by the wealthy.
Led by our guide, who spoke in Spanish and English, we climbed many stairs to the roof of the church where we admired an enormous five-ton bell in one of the towers.
For dinner that last evening in Arequipa, I ate at a recommended restaurant named Zig Zag, whose barrel-vaulted first floor room was small enough to feel intimate. After a study of the bill of fare while sipping a signature cocktail made with pisco and fresh fruits, I ordered pieces of lamb in a Roquefort sauce accompanied by frites rustica. The lamb was cooked to perfection. I drank a glass of Malbec from Argentina and finished the meal with a dish of vanilla ice cream.
The restaurant has two floors connected by a spiral staircase designed by Gustave Eiffel at the end of the 19th century. It’s a great piece of architecture and very strongly built.
March 14. For my last breakfast at the Fundador, I ate a quinoa crepe filed with warm apple slices. Delicious! At my table, I called Kay who was sitting with our friend Katie in front of Tribu in Moda. I brought my journal up to date and began packing.
I spent my last night in Peru at Lima Airport’s Holiday Inn. There was a time during my working years when Holiday Inns were my home away from home, but I hadn’t stayed in one in years. In a few hours, I would be in Chile.