Thursday, November 11, 2004

Arriba Arequipa

We've finally started to head inland, and uphill, towards the Peruvian altiplano. At the moment we're in Arequipa, Peru's second city, and whilst it's less than 2500m above sea level (still 1000m higher than Britain's highest peak) it's surrounded by some (still active!) volcanoes that tower over 6000m. And soon we'll be heading to places well over 3000m so I'm looking forward to experiencing altitude sickness firsthand.

Arequipa is called the "White City" by some due to the heavy use of a volcanic stone, called sillar, in many of its older buildings, although personally I don't rate it that highly in terms of beauty. It does have a couple of interesting museums though. The first houses "Juanita", an Inca girl who was sacrificed atop a mountain over 500 years ago and was only found in 1995 when the snow that had encased her melted (due to a volcanic eruption nearby). Due to this she is the best-preserved mummy in the world (although theoretically she's not a proper mummy because she's not dried out, as all her internal organs are intact and still contain the liquids that they contained at her death; but that's just semantics) and the guided museum is very informative (not to mention macabre. An interesting little tidbit of information that I picked up on the tour was that the Incas used to carry around their dried umbilical cords with them throughout life, and would chomp on a little bit when they were ill, a practice that is still carried out today in some parts of the Andes. Yummy!). The other museum is a huge convent, which takes up several blocks, that was closed to outside influences up until 1970. It's like a little city within a city and it's interesting to see the nuns' interpretation of their vows of poverty: some of their "cells" comprising of several spacious rooms, with kitchens and servants' quarters, as well as rather tasteful china and other mod cons.

One thing I've also noticed here in Peru is that many modern buildings have discrete yet conspicuous signs reassuring you that they are safe zones in case of earthquakes. Unfortunately, instead of reassuring me they have quite the opposite effect, as now I'm worrying about earthquakes whereas before I was blissfully unaware of them (apparently we had a little tremor early this morning, although I didn't feel it).

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