We arrived in Arequipa VERY early in the morning after our long night on the bus. We actually slept pretty well - about 6 hours for me (although I woke up a few times, particularly when we would stop to either let someone go to the bathroom or switch up drivers). Overall, it wasn't a bad night of sleep. I've definitely slept WAY worse on airplanes.
While we waited for our car to take us to our hotel in Arequipa, we were treated to a beautiful view of the volcano, Chachani. This is actually a dormant volcano right now.
Our driver dropped us off at our hotel but the room wasn't ready yet. But it had the CUTEST garden area! Todd and I found a big rec room with some big, comfy leather couches and promptly took naps while we waited for the breakfast room to open.
Yes please, I will have some delicious Peruvian coffee and some bread.
You eat animal crackers and plantain chips for breakfast too, right?
They were growing their own avocados right there in the hotel garden!
This will never not be amusing to me.
What a beautiful morning and a great way to start our time in Arequipa!
After breakfast, I followed Todd out of the hotel so we could meet up with Monica and a few other people from the Peru Hop bus at the Mercado San Camilo for our second breakfast!
This is a BIG market and we were able to pick up our souvenir magnet before we met up with Monica.
So many fruits and veggies!
Raw beef, yum.
That's a lot of chickens! This guy on the right is giving me the eye. To be fair, he's probably looking at Todd who is a giant among the Peruvians. He's actually a giant among Americans too, honestly.
This sandwich may very well have been Todd's downfall (!!) but it was really good. I had a YUMMY fruit drink with mangos, bananas and oranges since I had pretty much just had breakfast 15 minutes before this.
After breakfast, we made our way to the heart of the city for a free walking tour of Arequipa - our favorite thing to do when we travel! The Plaza de Armas in Arequipa is SO awesome. The city was founded in 1540 and one of the highlights of the area is the Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa, which you can see in the upper right.
I know. It seems weird but that's a real little girl and a real alpaca. You aren't really supposed to take pictures of the alpaca because then they will ask you for money. But Todd snapped this one from afar.
Our free walking tour of Arequipa began at the Cultural Center, which used to be the grand home known as Casa Arróspide when it was built back in 1743, now known as Casa Irriberry. It's one of the oldest colonial mansions, which has now been converted to an art gallery. Interestingly, the famous artist displayed here changes from time to time. Currently, we have Picasso!
Todd... picking Pablo Picasso's nose is frowned upon.
Our next stop on the free walking tour was to the Waya Lookout terrace. This bar is pretty famous among people who travel to Arequipa for it's amazing views of the sunset, as well as views of the three volcanoes that surround Arequipa. Here we see (once again) the stunning Chachani! Look at those little clouds that developed because of the orographic lift! So cool!
The most famous of all of the volcanoes here, however, is Misty. This is for a few reasons - one, because it's a classic looking cone shaped volcano. Second, it is the most famous because Juanita the Incan teenage girl who lived around the year 1450 was found mummified on this volcano in 1995. More on her in a bit!
Group photo 1!
First, a quick taste of chicha - a very low alcohol drink made of fermented purple corn!
Oh my word, look at the detail on this facade! This is the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús, which is a Jesuit church which was built between 1590 and almost 1700. This facade is actually a volcanic rock! We didn't go inside - but we did make it a point to come back later after the tour!
We stopped next at the Claustros de La Compañía, which are preserved cloisters that now function and shops and restaurants. This sits behind the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús and was built in the 17th century.
Group photo 2!
We found it very interesting that just about every bank we saw (on days that they were open) had a massive line out front, waiting to get in. That's got all the earmarks of being a run! (Name that movie!)
Our guide also took us down a secret street - or at least, a formerly secret street called Pasaje Cañon. They built this street behind all of the shops so that the deliveries could get made without the general public seeing.
It gets kind of narrow through here! I love the rounded archways ahead.
Oh hey, it's the Peruvian German Cultural Institute! This is where I would take my German classes if I lived here 💚
We actually ditched out on the free walking tour just a bit early (don't worry, we still tipped our guide!) because we had to get back to the hotel room so we could get ready to go on our afternoon tour of the Ruta del Sillar and the Quebrada de Culebrillas, with a brief stop at the Yanahuara scenic overlook. We had to have a little snack break back in the hotel room, too!
I know she's hard to see, but we were passing this park in the bus on our way to Yanahuara and I saw a bunch of girls putting up a big poster of JIMIN (did somebody say Jimin?) from BTS because it was his birthday! The girl in between the decorative concrete railing posts that you can kind of see is wearing a 95 shirt (the year Jimin was born!)
Our first stop of the afternoon tour was the Plaza de Yanahuara, which is a really pretty park with lots of palm trees and a church (the Parroquia San Juan Bautista de Yanahuara) that was built in 1750.
You would think that as someone who grew up in Florida, surrounded by palm trees, that I wouldn't marvel at them when I saw them in another country but of course, I did.
One of the best parts of Yanahuara is the incredible views that you get of the volcanoes! Here we are with Misty, who looks like she is smoking something!
The lookout area is decorated with arches made of sillar that have famous quotes from popular Arequipans engraved around them. More about the sillar that these are made from at our next stop!
Yes, I love warmth and palm trees.
On our way to our next stop, we grabbed some ice cream - but this wasn't just any ordinary ice cream. This is known as Queso Helado, or cheese ice cream! It's not REALLY made of cheese, of course. The name comes from how they prepare it- they used to freeze it and cut it into squares, which made it look like blocks of cheese. It's got all the usual things you would expect ice cream to have in it... and some coconut!
Our second stop of the afternoon was a bit out of the city - at the Ruta del Sillar. Arequipa is called the White City because many of the public buildings and churches are made of this white stone, known as sillar. Nowadays, the stone is sometimes used in newer communities but due to the high cost of extracting the stone from the quarry by manual labor, it's not used as much as it once was.
Nowadays, they also have an entire park at the quarry dedicated to some of the intricate rock displays that artists have carved. I didn't really need to kiss this frog, since I already have my prince!
This little arch was so cute!
The place is quite interactive and you can pretty much climb on most of the carvings.
'Murica.
You even can see a life sized nativity scene!
This is a replica of the Cathedral in Arequipa, but many people believe it looks a lot like Petra in Jordan.
Todd in the sillar quarry with Misti the volcano behind him!
Me: "Todd, hop in this little car!"
Him: "I can't! I don't fit!"
Me: "Well, pretend like you're driving!"
The art is really very cool here - and you can see good examples of ashlar all over the place (the large, square shape blocks of sillar that form the base for these sculptures). There's a lot of examples of this in the city, as well.
Our next and last stop was really cool. The Quebrada de Culebrillas is located in a small canyon that you hike through to view some petroglyphs from the Wari culture which existed here between the 6th and 10th centuries, AD. Oh, and of course you get a nice view of Chachani!
Thankfully the canyon is dry this time of year, although it doesn't appear as if they get a lot of rain here anyway!
The canyon is about 50-65 feet deep at some points! You walk through the narrow canyon for a bit before you reach some of the petroglyphs.
Hey, it's the Man in the Mountain from New Hampshire! (Just kidding!)
Yeah, come on. Don't do that.
We finally reached the petroglyphs - and unfortunately, they are fading with time (sun, wind, and sand) and in some cases, very difficult to see. Here, there are depictions of humans and animals which included (of course) the snake, the puma and the condor - three of the most important figures in the Inca Trilogy. Although these petroglyphs were determined to be from the Wari culture, which predated the Inca's by about a thousand years, it's also known that the Inca borrowed a lot of their beliefs from other cultures such as the Wari and the Nazca people.
The snake represents the underworld, or the world of the dead.
You can only sort-of see the puma here, unfortunately. He represented the land of the living, and if you notice the large block that takes up most of this picture is almost divided into thirds. The puma is in the bottom third, to the left of the vertical crack.
I thought this was a really neat stop - particularly because we were hiking through an old floodplain, but it was really cool to see the old petroglyphs before they fade away entirely. And the end of the day sunset made for really pretty shadows on the rocks.
Me and my guy, with Chachani behind us.
We took the bus back into the city, and it was dark by the time we got back. We headed out to get some dinner and I'm having major regrets about NOT buying these K-Pop Demon Hunters books (for my nieces but probably for me, too!)
We had dinner reservations, but of course, we had some time to kill beforehand so we stopped at Waya for some drinks and a beautiful nighttime view of the Arequipa Cathedral.
Salud to Arequipa!
But oh my goodness, dinner was worth waiting for! We went to Kao Arequipa, which is Thai and Peruvian cuisine and it was outstanding! I had the Tacu Thai BBQ, which was awesome.
After dinner, we strolled through the Plaza de Armas, which surprised us with how busy it was!
And we had to make ONE last stop before we went back to our hotel - which was at the Peruvian version of a 7-11 to pick up some snacks and water. While we were paying, I almost had a heart attack when I spotted THIS. Are you kidding me. I can't find Boone's Farm in New England, but I can find it in a random city in Peru? Is this for real!? For the record - no, I didn't buy it, but I'm kind of wishing I had! That price only converts to about $6 HA! Some things never change!
No comments:
Post a Comment