The drive to Arequipa took 9 hours through a lot of desert with the occasional shabby looking town or the occasional green oasis with a sighty nicer looking town built around it where the fresh water rivers met the sea.
Following recommendations from Dragoman and guide books a few of us went out to visit a few of the tourist spots the lovely city had to offer, firstly Santa Carolina Convent and it´s very important cake shop! The convent is an old city with spanish street names within the city itself and is beautiful. The nuns originally were the 2nd daughters born to rich families who were automaticaly expected to follow out their lives within the convent and pray for the family, renouncing all contact with the outside world, apart from visits from family which were constructed with a screen between them. Their lives at this point however were fairly comfortable as each nun had a bedroom, a basic kitchen and their own servant. In 1871the pope changed the running of the convent and all the nuns had to sleep in dorms and share a kitchen where they worked and lived in poverty in comparison. One of the photos shows the laundry area and water channel.
Enough of all that though and on to the cake bit.....all baked by the current nuns who now live in the modern adjacent building and are divine in every sense!
Momia Juanita (Ice Maiden)is the frozen body of an Incan girl who was sacrificed to the Apus, mountain deities between the age of 11 - 15years old. Her body was discovered in 1995 wrapped in clothes from when she was sacrificed 500 years previously and preserved remarkably well, locked in by ice. At the time of discovery the mountain ash from an nearby volcano was melting the overlaying snow and making the discovery possible. Studies on the body identified that had drunk coca tea before her death to aid her ascent and pigrimage up the mountain and she was killed by a blow to the head. The textiles around her and belongings found near her body identified that she was an important girl born to a significant Incan family at the time. Her body is now situated in a museum in a frozen glass box.
Sadly I couldn´t take photos of Juanita but I could take a picture of the dead roasted guinnea pig served up for dinner (not mine thankfully) with all teeth and legs attached! I did try a taste and it was quite tasty. Other photos are the local band who played to us at dinner and one of the the main plaza.
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