Juanita's Sacrifice and Arequipa’s Anniversary

We had a morning tour of Arequipa, starting off with a view of the volcano range that overlooks the city. A visit to Parroquia San Juan Bautista de Yanahuara followed, that is known for being built in 1750 with sillar (white volcanic rock) and for incorporating Inca carvings alongside Christian ones in the facade. This intertwining of indigenous culture with that of the Spanish (Catholic) faith is a feature of many buildings in Arequipa and Peru in general. Also, whilst there, we had a great view of the city, through the stone arches of the observation platform nearby. We then head to the centre of the city and the Church of La Compania, a Jesuit church on the corner of the main square, Plaza de Armas. Again, the facade consists of a mix of Catholic and Inca religious symbolism. A few hundred metres away is the Santa Catalina Convent, where we had a guide take us around this amazing 'town within a town'. It was built in 1579, with women from diverse backgrounds entering the convent as cloistered nuns, never to return home. In its inception, girls as young as 12 were sent here, but now you have to be 18. The place is pretty large, with many buildings that served as homes for the nuns, and streets /alleys with Spanish names, e.g. Granada Street. At its peak, there were a couple of hundred nuns, but now only 20 are living here. What was interesting about our tour, was that we had a couple of young nuns in our small group of 8, but they were visiting here from the USA with their family.

Lunch was at Chicha, a nice restaurant housed in an old building opposite the convent. We brave ourselves to order cuy, which is a traditional Andean entree. Cuy is guinea pig, and the one we had, had been fried and served with a spicy salad. It tasted of chicken, was quite bony and did not have much meat. So, whilst a national dish and we are glad we did taste it, we would not rush back and order it again. After lunch, our final destination was to Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria, to learn about the Incan ceremony Capac Cocha and the sacrifices made by the Incas to appease the gods and to stop the volcano eruptions. In particular, the sacrific of children was carried out, where the youngsters had effectively been indoctrinated to give up their lives to be closer to the gods. Only the beautiful and noble were chosen for this. We saw the body of Juanita, who was found in 1995 by Dr Johan Reinhard at Ampato Volcano, in Arequipa. She had been immaculately preserved in the ice for over 500 years and it was incredible to see her complete body, in the foetal position, as she would have looked at the point of her sacrifice (she was drugged, then killed by a blow to the head). She would have been about 14 years old.

When we left the museum, we walked into a massive festival; Arequipa was celebrating 479 years since its founding by Garci Manuel de Carbajal on 15th August 1540. In the main square, there were thousands of people to see the parades and processions of the various communities of the region. There were brass bands, drummers, tractors, horses with excellent riders, cows, donkeys, children, teenagers, dancers, clowns - you name it, they were there! All sorts of clothing, colours, masks, hats - everything. We managed to get a good view on a balcony, overlooking the square and stayed there at least 2 hours - it seemed that the processions would never end. Along the way back to our hotel, we passed a street party, with tables lining the shops and people enjoying local fare provided by many venders. The festival lasted until 5am - we know that because that is when the city suddendly went silent and we then managed to end some sleep!

The next day, we caught our plane to Lima - felling rather weary, but thankful we saw the great celebration the night before.