Arequipa Day 1: Seeing the Sights

We took the bus from Tacna to Arequipa on Thursday afternoon, which was about a six hour trip. We arrived in the mid afternoon, met the hostel manager at the bus station and got up to our hostel, a little north of the city in a convenient location.  The first day we walked around a little, ate, and booked our hike after visiting many of the tour companies in the area.

On Friday, we visited three of the main attractions in Arequipa, the Museo Santuarios de Altura, the Cathedral, and the Monasterio Santa Catalina.

The Museo's prized possession is a mummy named Juanita the Ice Maiden, pictured here:

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It is the body of a young teenager who was found in 1995 by a scientist near the peak of one of the local volcanoes, Mt. Amparo.  The museum tells the story of her discovery and the location of several other child mummies in the area.  The story goes that the Incas sacrificed Juanita and the other mummies found on this volcano and others in Peru about 500 years ago during a time of unpredictable weather and other difficulties, and that the children were offerings to the gods to try to address the problems they were having.

The body was found basically by accident, because a neighboring volcano had been smoking and warmed up the top of Mt. Amparo, which is how Juanita was discovered.  The scientists estimate that she had only been exposed to the weather for a few weeks when she was found, so she is very well preserved. At the museum there is a video about her discovery, the clothes she was found in, some of the ceremonial objects that were found along with her, and at the end, the actual mummy of Juanita in a climate controlled chamber. It is pretty amazing and the museum does a good job of telling the story. Here is a picture of Mt. Amparo, also from the museum's website (we weren't allowed to take photos):

 

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After Juanita, we went to the Plaza de Armas and the Cathedral.  As I mentioned in the last post, the Cathedral is huge and is quite an impressive building.

We wandered through the cathedral but again could not take photos inside. The towers of the cathedral (like the one to the left in the photo above) apparently have been damaged or knocked over by frequent earthquakes, most recently in 2001, but they are quickly restored and rebuilt. 

The Plaza de Armas is also really pretty, with these arched colonnades on the other three sides of the square:

There were tons of people out because the weather was great, and we enjoyed just hanging out in the square for a little while before moving on.

Next up, the Monasterio de Santa Catalina--we took tons of photos so I think it gets its own post!