Ariquipa - The White City

Ariquipa

We arrived in Ariquipa to a hot and sunny afternoon and checked into our hotel.  This is definitely one of our better hotels. The rooms are nothing special, though we did have hot water, the surprisingly unusual feature of a wardrobe, and a minibar.  But the main feature was the gardens. All around the property were lovely areas to sit out and relax in the sun.  But first we had a city to look around.



Ariquipa



Ariquipa is called the White City, which I wrongly assumed comes from the white stonework of it's main buildings.  In fact it refers to the paler skintone of the people of the city, which was a result of the Spanish settlers and their liaisons with the locals.

As Peru's second city, it is wealthier than other places we have been here and far fewer people wear traditional dress.  The main square - as ever the Plaza Des Armes - is very elegant with it's flowers and fountains, and the buildings are grand and imposing.

Nic in Ariquipa

We found a nice place on the square for lunch, albeit that it involved climbing five flights of stairs to reach it.  The view was great though,  of both the square and the backdrop of the Andes and the Misti Volcano. After lunch some walking around was on order, finding churches and scoping out restaurants as we went.



Browsing around the shops I found an alpaca furry hat which I immediately wanted. Of course it makes no sense as we have left behind the cold in Bolivia and are now heading further into the sun. I still bought it though and am justifying it on the basis that I will need it when we go to Patagonia and Antarctica. That, and I like it.

Guinea pig dinner

After a quick - and free - pisco sour at the hotel, we went for a group dinner.  Now a traditional Peruvian speciality is cuy, or guinea pig, and Ariquipa is supposed to be the place to try it. It is eaten by people here for all celebrations, as confirmed by our trek guide in Cusco and Estella our homestay host in Raqchi, who had told us they would be eating it to celebrate her mother's upcoming birthday.

So of course we had to try it.  Nic went for the safe option of a guinea pig stew, which was OK.  I decided to break my usual rule of not eating things with recognisable body parts, and have the more traditional Cuy Chuctau.  This was basically a deep fried, flattened guinea pig minus only fur and most innards.  The head and feet were still attached and it looked like a squashed rat on the plate, complete with ears, claws and teeth!



Live band in Retro bar



There isn't much meat on a guinea pig. And that which I did manage to pick off was a bit bland really and probably not at its best for having been deep fried.  I drew the line at the tiny heart, lungs and kidneys that I found on the underside of my rodent, but Nic couldn't resist having a chew on the head to try out the ears and cheeks.  That may be OK with an actual pig, but is probably best avoided in the guinea variety!  Whilst the meat in a stew was not bad, I can't say that guinea pig is an experience I'll be rushing to repeat, and I certainly don't intend to have another plate with a whole rodent on it!

After dinner we hit a local bar called Retro, which had an excellent live band playing old rock and pop from The Beatles and Blondie, to Steppenwolf and ACDC.  They kept us amused into the early hours, and seemed to enjoy having a bunch of enthusiastic foreigners singing along. 

Santa Catalina Convent, Ariquipa



On our second day here, after an unusually decent breakfast, we visited the Santa Catolina convent.  Our guide showed us around the beautiful mediterranean looking buildings and told us about the lives if the nuns.



Santa Catalina convent



Rich families would deposit their twelve year old daughters there for the rest of their lives, presumably with the expectation that this service to God would seal their way to heaven.  The family paid handsomely for the privilege, and the nuns did have a reasonably good life and almost twice the normal life expectancy.  But I can't say that I would have been too happy with my parents if I were one of these girls. 

Washing bowls



The convent was certainly a relaxing and beautiful place though, painted in bright white, terracotta and blue, and with lots of little courtyards and gardens.

There was a strange looking water feature, with lots of large bowl shaped stones either side of a central spine, which turned out to be their clothes washing 'sinks'.  They worked by having water flowing down the centre, and they used a stone to divert the water into their bowl when they wanted to use it.  Simple, clever, and quite pretty too.

The day we were there they were filming something about one of the nuns that used to live here and so there were nuns walking around, just not real ones.
 My next task for the day was to shop for food with Izzie and TJ for our camping in Puerta Inca.  We had a slightly strange encounter on the way, as we passed a man wearing nothing but an open raincoat; he was just walking down the street quite normally with no-one taking any notice of him at all.  We found the local market, which as ever had many stalls, but each type of stall sells the same things - having a unique selling point clearly isn't a concept they believe in in South America.  With the food safely stored in the truck, I had time to catch up on a few blogs before Nic and I went for dinner.


Desserts at Zigzag

 We'd found a good place to eat, with beef, alpaca and pork steaks flambeed in cognac.  Very nice. And we treated ourselves to their trio of desserts as well.  This meal was definitely better than the guinea pig and looked prettier too!