The Ice Maiden

We arrived in Arequipa around 7:30 this morning. It is a large city of about 1 million people, on the valley floor under a huge active volcano, El Misti, and the other snow-capped mountains of Chachani and Pichu Pichu. El Misti is a perfectly typical volcano shape and looks almost fake as it looms over the city. We found a hostel, dropped our bags, had an awesomely hot and powerful shower (a real treasure here) and then headed out to walk around. The streets of Arequipa are narrow, cobble-stoned alleys (most one-way, one car only), rising in small hills up from the centre Plaza de Armas. The buildings are colonial style, making it a cute town to walk around. We headed down to the Plaza where we were just in time to watch a parade. It seemed to be a military parade of some sort, with all varieties of the military represented (infantry in fatigues, navy boys in blue, special forces in black etc) all decked out in their gear with full packs and weapons, marching in formation. Maybe it was some sort of veteran´s day? But most of the guys looked fairly young, so we´re not sure. But this was all accompanied by a full military band, and what seemed like half of the town´s people, so it was fun, and great luck that we just happened upon it. We then walked around the plaza, went inside La Catedral (where we stayed for the first 15 minutes of Sunday morning mass, but since it was in Spanish, we convinced ourselves to say our own prayers and leave), then had REAL coffee on the balcony of a cafe overlooking the plaza. Since it was Sunday morning, there were tons of families out enjoying the morning sunshine post-parade, shopping, going to mass, eating and hanging out.

After coffee, we went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos. Juanita the Ice Princess is displayed here. She is a 12-13 year old Inca girl found frozen in the glaciers of the Ampato Volcano (6380m) in 1995. She had been frozen in the glacier for about 550 years. It is thought that she was sacrificed to the mountain gods at Apu Ampato by Inca priests. They say she was ´put to sleep´ before a massive blow to her right eyebrow (cause of death). We got most of the information in the entrance to the museum, so we chose not to pay the rip-off entrance fee to see Juanita herself (there were plenty of photos in the information centre), especially since we´ve seen heaps of mummies in Egypt that look pretty much the same.

I can´t really remember what else we did for the rest of the day, so I guess that´s about it for Arequipa. Oh yeah, we did have Turkish food for dinner.