Perú/Bolivia - Part IV (Arequipa)

Arequipa

After the horrible 10hr trip via night bus we somehow arrived in Arequipa in one piece, albeit a little tired. This marked the first ascent into the Andes. We had already been told not to drink alcohol (or take aspirin), as it thins the blood, which doesn't help if you want to acclimatise and avoid altitude sickness. I wasn't really worried, as I had already visited Tibet a couple years before, where we somewhere between 3700m (12,000 ft) and 5600m (18,400 ft) above sea level and only experienced minor headaches and shortness of breath, plus the fact that we flew straight into Lhasa, so no real time for a steady acclimatization.
I was in for a little surprise.
We had started in Lima at sea-level, and had a steady climb to where we would be between 3300m (10,825 ft) and 4,000m (13,125 ft) for the next 3 weeks (hitting a high of 4913m / 16,120 ft). Little did I know I would have to get used to the bloody noses, headaches, and how walking a flight of stairs felt like a marathon. Weird, lower than Tibet, but it affected me more. Also funny to think of the Dutch people along with us... as they actually live below sea-level.
Arequipa (2380m / 7740 ft), also known as La Ciudad Blanca ("the white city"), situated above the San Andreas fault line is Perú's second most important city, surrounded by some 80 volcanoes, most notably Chachani (meaning "the beloved" in Quechua), Picchu Picchu ("top top"), and my personal favorite: El Misti (which I assume, doesn't mean anything). They range from 5822m (19,100 ft) to 6075m (19,930 ft). I forgot which, but one is still active. Most of Arequipa's buildings are made from the white volcanic rock (hence, "ciudad blanca").

I took a power-nap and met up with my Mom around lunch at the Plaza de Armas (every place we went had one, it is the name of pretty much every main square in Latin America, thanks to the Spanish Conquistadores).

Plaza de Armas (Plaza of Arms) was called this as it would serve as the area to protect the city from attack, and weapons would be supplied to the defenders... ironic that it was the Spanish themselves that came along and ultimately destroyed everything, in the name of religion. The Inca beliefs were seen as Pagan and against Christianity, which almost baffles me... seeing as all the damage the Spanish did, and yet the language of choice throughout South America is still Spanish (I for one, would hold a grudge), but I'll leave that for a debate some other time.
It's funny that the all-mighty Christian conquerors couldn't build worth mierda, considering many of their buildings have been damaged by earthquakes, whereas Inca structures more than twice as old, still stand.
On the map to the left, you can see my walk, although half is missing, leaving my hotel towards the Plaza, then lunch at a place called La Quinta (which can be seen in the mosaic picture above - bottom left).
I was a little surprised to see a mob of people on the Plaza de Armas, including riot police, as there was a protest going on. I didn't know what as going on, seeing as I don't know what "viva el paro" or "muerta al conejo" means... although I know viva means "long live", and if I'm not mistaken muerta is death and conejo is rabbit... but I didn't get it... "Long Live the Bunny Killer"???

(We found out later it was a protest against a gas price hike- what better way to protest gas prices than driving around the plaza!)

And before you start wondering, yes all those yellow cars are cabs. It's funny how cabs in NYC are massive, and the drivers give you a weird look if someone has to sit in the front passenger seat... you should see how many people they could squeeze into those tiny cars, saw some with 7+!

Taxi, Plaza de Armas, Arequipa.

After lunch (I had a stuffed pepper with some other goodies), we hit up the massive Monasterio Santa Catalina. Built in 1580, it was a cloistered convent founded by a rich widow, in the travel books they called it "a photographers' paradise" (we'll see about that).

In all honestly, it was amazingly beautiful, the rich colors of the walls, the staircases to nowhere, it was Mondrian meets Escher up in the Andes.

Excerpt from Wikipedia:
"Each nun at Santa Catalina had between one and four servants or slaves, and the nuns invited musicians to perform in the convent, gave parties and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. Each family paid a dowry at their daughter's entrance to the convent, and the dowry owed to gain the highest status, indicated by wearing a black veil, was 2,400 silver coins, equivalent to US$50,000 today. The nuns were also required to bring 25 listed items, including a statue, a painting, a lamp and clothes."
Sounds like college. Only it's double as expensive, we were the slaves, not close [at all] to the lavishness (although my dorm room did look a little like the bedroom picture below -minus the cross) and instead of a black veil we are given gown and square hat, but then only get to keep the stupid tassle.

"el ascensión"

"el baño"

It should also be noted that I took roughly 36 panorama's, including one from the top of the Monastery, but as I'm currently working on putting a gallery show together of those images, so they must remain secret... they are pretty amazing if I do say so myself, I'll have some teasers later on (they range from 6 seamlessly stitched-together images to over 40!).

Just before dinner, I went out and shot some trademark Timagery:

For dinner I had alpaca (more on that in the next blog post), which is the smaller cousin to the llama. Delicious. The following day, we were to ascend into the proper Andes, towards the Colca Canyon (home of the condor, among many many other things), which is either the deepest or second deepest canyon in the world (apparently, they still can't make up their mind). It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the USA, but without the impressive steep drop-offs.
Buenos nachos.