The White City
When we woke it was as though the same scene was being run from yesterday, but with more activity. The sky was the same; clear blue and cloudless, and the domes of the volcanoes loomed large to the southeast. After breakfast we walked into the centre of the city to the Museo Santury, an otherwise modest archaeological museum that exhibits a range of artefacts from the region, all of it leading to the mummy of Juanita, an Incan girl sacrificed around 1500AD to quell the gods inhabiting Nevado Ampoto.
The exhibits, videos and guided tour tell the story of how the people in the area lived, their beliefs, and their customs. By the time you reach the mummy in her glass freezer, you’ve received a good primer of knowledge to appreciate why her life was taken so early, and that she would’ve given herself willingly. I felt some pity for her, and her society, for not understanding that neither her sacrifice, nor the dozens of other children whose bodies have been uncovered there, had any impact on the magma shifts that enraged the volcano. But then again, the Inca were switched on to a lot of other things well ahead of other ‘more advanced’ societies, so who’s to say they were wrong.
From the museum we continued into the Plaza de Armas. There was a lot more activity today (yesterday it had been all but deserted), and I wished I’d brought my camera and tripod last night to do some long exposures, as I was certain we wouldn’t get the same opportunity now everyone was moving freely again.
We decided to get some lunch, and once again did a lap of the plaza, and once again, the spruikers for each of the restaurants tried to convince us theirs was the best. Some of them recognised us from the night before, and as we walked past them for a third time in less than 24 hours, they called after us in exasperation. Ultimately, we settled on a restaurant that had been closed last night, and went upstairs to sit on their portion of the upper veranda, where we could look out over the plaza and beyond the cathedral to the volcanoes, where El Misti and the others sat hunched over the city. With my appetite back, I decided it was better to try the local dishes, rather than ask for something I might be craving and ultimately regret, so I ordered Alpaca stew.
While we waited, one of the staff invited us to the roof of the building so we could get unobstructed views (and photos) of El Misti with the Cathedral in the foreground. Despite the lack of a snowcap, the cone shaped mass of rock is imposing, and a coating of what I can only assume is ash, gave it a faint white cap even without the snow. For a long time we’d debated about whether or not to climb El Misti, or do a tour of Cruz del Condor. There wasn’t time for both, unfortunately, and so ultimately the allure of one of the deepest canyons in the world combined with one of the most fabled birds in the world, won out.
As we scaled back down the steps into the restaurant, the manager took us aside and proudly showed us how they cooked the meats on hot rocks (apparently it does a better job). When we returned to our table, a couple from the Basque country asked us to take some photos for them (and they returned the favour). Shortly afterwards our meals arrived. I’ll say this for Alpaca stew, it’s not like anything I’d tasted before. The meat has a very strong flavour, and is not especially tender, but with the rest of the stew, was something my digestive tract was happy enough to get to work on. I didn’t have the appetite back to completely polish it off, but it gave me a much-needed boost.
From lunch we walked back to the hotel to wait for the city tour we’d booked for the afternoon. It turned out our guide was the concierge, who aside from studying and working, also moonlighted for such things. My lack of Spanish gave him a good opportunity to practise his English, and he made a pretty decent show of it. He took us to a house overlooking the Río Chili as it tumbled into the outskirts of the city, and where a clear view of all seven of the volcano domes was available. It was a nice place with a pleasant outlook, and had we been less pressed for time, spending a day there watching the water go by wouldn’t have been out of the question, but today it was.
We went on to a number of other local attractions, arriving finally at the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a sprawling convent in the centre of the city, not far from the Plaza de Armas and close to the cathedral. It’s probably one of the most popular tourist attractions here, and so we had to wait for a guide that spoke English.
Moving through the complex we learned about the lives of the nuns, which initially at least, seemed far from the image of the humbly living nuns I’d grown up with in my local parish. Each of them had their own little apartment or townhouse within the citadel, complete with servants. Apparently the first occupants lived rather opulent and socially active lives, however that changed dramatically at some point, though the exhibits within the convent, and the guided tour do not allude to this in any way—it was something I found out later.
In one of the apartments, the walls of the kitchen were black from the decades, perhaps centuries of smoke from the earthen stove, and in another, we saw how the porous sillar had been used for water filtration. Large cones had been carved from the rock, then hollowed out to create a tank with a capacity of perhaps 5-10 litres. Once filled with water, it seeped through the rock, leaving behind most of its impurities, then dripping into a pot underneath.
The rendered exterior walls were painted bright, earthly colours, and each of the internal streets carried the names of various cities in Spain, most of which I’d visited. As we moved around the complex, we passed through small courtyards with a variety of rare fruit trees (as well as some common ones). By the time we left the complex, it was nearly dark, and we still had the cathedral and the Jesuit cloisters to tour. Our guide was waiting for us, and he quickly led us into the cathedral.
This was the only major cathedral we went into in Peru, but it was the equal of many of the ones we saw in Spain. We managed to exit just as they were closing the doors for the evening service, which could’ve kept us in there for at least another hour. I couldn’t help making a disparaging remark about the church and its captive audience.
From there we went to the Jesuit church, Iglesia de la Compañía, with its intricately carved stone façade. A mass was underway in there as well, so we couldn’t go in, and instead visited the adjoining San Ignacio chapel. By the time we returned to Casa Arequipa, it was late enough for us to be looking for dinner. In the morning, we were to be collected early for the day-long bus ride over the Andes to Chivay, the town from which we were to journey to Cruz del Condor. We didn’t fancy another trip into the Plaza de Armas, and so, on the advice of our hosts, visited a nearby restaurant that made us feel profoundly under-dressed.
Near the entrance, a grand piano stood ear a cocktail bar, and the pianist nodded politely to us as we entered (the door was held open for us by a guy in a tuxedo, though he appeared to be doubling as a bouncer). He played a variety of easy listening tunes as background noise, but his efforts went largely unnoticed because, well, we were the only customers. On a busy day, the place would probably have held a couple of hundred people, but that day was definitely not today.
We took a seat and the waiter eventually came to attend us. I really don’t remember what I ate there, as the waiter had a way of upstaging everything else about the place. Every time he put something in front of us, he made a gesture with his right hand as if to say “Would you look at that! It’s a modern marvel!” A bottle of coke, a glass with some ice. The gesture. Bread rolls. The gesture. Our entrée. The gesture. The main. The gesture. Desert. The Gesture. I can’t remember if he did it with the bill as well or not, but I’m gonna guess that he did.
By the time we finished, there were several groups of people spread around the restaurant, one in particular being quite boisterous (they’d imbibed to some degree), but it was still far from hopping. Whilst the price wasn’t too intimidating to me, I’m sure it would’ve been for many Peruvians, and would be more in the realm of once a year (or once a life time) than once a month.
We went home and packed our day packs for the overnight journey to Cruz del Condor, and ensured as much as possible was packed in our larger bags for storage at Casa Arequipa. Outside the city hummed with nightlife. We slept.