Arequipa – Nice mid-size city with a mix of colonial and modern

Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

Arequipa was one of the earliest cities founded by the Spanish. It was unique to most Spanish cities in that it was not established on top of an existing indigenous city. Instead, Arequipa was created in between three indigenous populations. Thus, all of the colonial architecture is Spanish alone.

Arequipa reminded me a little of Cuenca in Ecuador in its mix of colonial/modern, size and solid infrastructure.  It is very comfortable city. I stayed for 5 days in Arequipa.

It is situated next to two large volcanoes: Misti and Chachani. Unfortunately, it was rainy season and it was difficult to get good views. The day I arrived, I had magnificent views of both Misti and Chachani. I could not find a good angle to get a picture and I was tired so I decided to rest instead. I did not have as good a view for the rest of the time I was there.

My best picture of Misti

Iglesia de la Compañia

The Spanish Jesuits started construction on the Iglesia de la Compañia in the late 1500's. An interesting thing about this church is that it used a mix of Catholic and indigenous religious symbols. The apparent idea was that they could influence the indigenous people if they could relate to the symbolism on the church.

The facade had ornate carvings that included common animals used in Incan culture. 

Notice the sun (a symbol of indigenous religions) below Christ.

Iglesia la Compañia Plaza - note the Muslim influence in the architecture

Santa Catalina Monastery

The Santa Catalina Monastery was founded in 1579. It grew to a size of 20,000 square meters and housed as many as 300 nuns at one time. As I walked through the monastery, I kept thinking that this was 17th century version of mixed corporate / residential use. There were quarters for nuns. There were a large number of wood ovens. I believe baking may have been a source of income given the number of ovens. There were confessionals, a chaple, a large kitchen, a laundry area, a pharmacy, and a few other areas. One thing I learned: the nuns had some sort of property rights to their quarters; as there were records of nuns selling their quarters to others.

The entrance to Santa Catalina

Looking over Santa Catalina gives an idea of the size of the monastery

A nun's quarters

A street within the convent

One of the many wood ovens

Branding on the wafer. You are eating the body of Christ brought to you by the Jesuits

The laundry room

Me in front of a tree

An open area within the monastery

The Founder's House

The Casa del Fundador (founder's house) was built by the initial founder of the city of Arequipa, Don Manuel Garcí de Carbajal. The initial building occurred in the year 1540. That is an old house. Today, it serves for historical visits and community events.

Founder's House Entrance

Living area

Decorative Armory

A full suit of armor

View out from staff entrance

Garden in front of founder's house

More natural wood art

Other Pictures of Arequipa

Mirador de Carmen Alto. On clear day we would be able to see Misti very well from here

Iglesia de Yanahuara

Notice the Incan image on the facade

Mirador Yanahuara

The devil in the Arequipa Cathedral

Hiking Colca Canyon, One of the Deepest Canyons in the World

Me in Colca Canyon

Like many other places I have visited, I knew nothing about Colca Canyon prior to arriving in Peru. It turns out that Peru has two of the deepest canyons in the world: Cotahausi and Colca. While Cotahuasi is deeper, it is also much more remote and with very few services. So, most tourists like myself visit Colca. Colca is actually twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but the measurements are imprecise. Colca has a sheer face close to the river, but up higher has more of a valley topography. So, the deepest canyon is a disputed matter. Regardless, it is clearly one of the deepest in the world.

The Ride Up

I took a two day tour that started from Arequipa at 3:30 in the morning; very early for me. We drove up over the pampa reaching approximately 4,900 meters. The area looked amazing as it was covered with snow. Regretfully, I did not get any pictures of this as our guide was anxious to keep time so that we could see the condors at the condor look out. If you are taking this trip and you see this, my recommendation would be that you insist that you stop for pictures as the snow will most likely not be there when you return as it appears to melt daily.

Our first stop was for breakfast in the small town of Chivay. We then continued on directly to the condor look out where we saw no condors due to clouds, so we continued directly on to the hike.

The Hike Day 1

The first day of the hike was 18 km that had a net vertical drop of 1,320 meters with a gross vertical drop of approximately 1,755 with 580 meters of climbing. For me, this was a tough hike. Adding to the difficulty was the loose rock on the descent. I had to constantly watch my footing, which took away from the time that I could spend viewing the canyon.

During our initial descent, we were fortunate to see the condors that we could not see earlier. They gave us a good show as they flew around while we descended; meaning that we saw them from below, at the same level, and from above; all from a fairly close distance. It appeared that they must have a roosting point nearby, but we could not identify it.

The imagery was consistently fantastic:

View atop Colca Canyon

The Oasis where we would spend the night

View towards the valley of Colca Canyon

A canyon face

At the base of Colca Canyon

Looking up from the base of Colca

Heading up river towards the oasis

KM marker 18. My feet were sore.

Crossing the river one more time to reach the oasis

The oasis was a nice hostel with very few modern conveniences. It had a pool with luke warm water that we all dove into after the hike. There was no electricity. We ate a carb filled dinner and then went early to bed.

The Hike Day 2

The second day of the hike was primarily direct uphill 1,170 meters. While it was all uphill, I actually found this much easier than the much longer hike to arrive at the oasis. It was cloudy with slight rain, which helped keep me cool on the way up. The views were outstanding. I was hoping to get one of those religious inspiring views where the sun rays peak through the clouds. It seemed like it was going to happen all day, but did not.

Starting the hike up in the morning

View of the town at the top

Looking down from the top

The Ride Back

On the ride back we stopped at a few lookouts, the town of Maca and in the pampa where we saw llamas, alpacas and vicuñas. I was especially pleased to see the vicuñas as these are non-domesticated and endangered. I had not see them before.

Terraced agriculture in the valley

An eagle and I in the town of Maca

Domesticated alpacas

Wild vicuñas, hard to see

Huacachina, Nazca Lines and Dune Buggy / Sandboarding

Huacachina, literally a desert oasis

Arrived in Huacachina after what turned out to be a really nice ride from Paracas. I was a bit concerned as it started out very hot, my legs were surprisingly tired from the slack line and it looked like pure desert from Paracas to Huacachina. I took an extra 3 liters of water just in case. I did not need them. The roads were good, the air cooled and it actually started sprinkling on my way into Huacachina.

Huacachina

Huacachina is literally a desert oasis. It is a small lake surrounded by small hotels and restaurants. It was popular in the 1940’s, but went out of favor. It re-surged as some enterprising individuals marketed it to tourists for dune buggy riding and sand boarding adventures.

Huacachina from above enroute to Nazca Lines from Ica

Nazca Lines

If you are nearby, I think it is a must to see the Nazca Lines, which I think you also need to see them from the air. I took a flight out of Ica (near Huacachina). I can’t help but think of the Nazca Lines as archeology’s version of crop circles.

This plane looked/felt safe. I was reading that safety has not been the top priority among airline companies flyiing Nazca. Some airlines with crashes have simply closed and opened under a different name.

The hummingbird. One of the easier to figures to see. Not easy to get pictures of these.

From the plane, vast desert is the majority of what you see. There are some well irrigated crop lands. It tells you that with some sophisticated irrigation or cheap desalination, this area could be productive. It also makes me wonder what it was like during the period the Nazca Lines were created. Were they created during a time in which water was more available for crop land? Is the desert a recent phenomenon? I think that one of the reasons that I think this is due to the fact that I think it would be extremely difficult to live out in the desert. Yet, I have found that people do manage to subsist out in the desert. There are people living there who probably require no support from other communities in order to survive.

From the plane: vast desert.  

Dune Buggy / Sandboarding

I really enjoyed this activity. It starts with a ride on a dune buggy through the dunes. This is a blast. You go over some ridges and are looking straight down. The guy beside me was screaming like child the whole ride. Then we stopped and gave a try at sand boarding. I started to get a hang of it. For the last hills, we road like a sled as these were pretty steep.

Dune buggy behind me

We road this via sled. Look at the people to guage the size of this hill

Paracas and Islas Ballestas

Islas Ballestas

Paracas was very relaxing. I planned to stay for a couple days and ended up staying six. I think the best thing to do in Paracas is go to Islas Ballestas. Aside from that, I relaxed and played on the slack line at the hotel, which I very much enjoyed. I did not make it to the reserve south of Paracas, because every day I got a little too much sun on the slack line and did not want to stay out in the sun. I probably should have stayed off the slack line for one day.

Islas Ballestas

Islas Ballestas is a national park made from some islands not too far off shore from Paracas. I went with a tour, which was essentially a boat ride around the islands. We had a tour guide, but I could not hear what he was saying most of the time as the speaker system was not that good. Islas Ballestas are populated with sea lions, fur seals, penguins and tons of birds. Since it is covered with birds, it is also covered with bird guano. There is so much bird guano that someone created a company to recover the bird guano for use as fertilizer; it failed.

Main island from a distance

Seal lions and fur seals

Caves are cool

Group of penguins along with other birds. Penguins are also cool.

These sea lions had huge necks. This is different than I recall seeing in other places including recently in the Galapagos.

On the way back, we saw these pelicans. These are the same as I saw on the peer in Trujillo. They are monsters. I wonder if they feed on baby great whites.

Paracas

Paracas itself is a small beach town with a number of pretty good restaurants. I ate some very good ceviche here.

The beach at Paracas

What I spent most of my time doing