The White City & the Ice Maiden
Right from the very first moment we stepped off the bus in Arequipa, Peru felt like home. The bus terminal was jam packed. Colours and smells assaulted the senses. Chaos in every direction as people hustled through the door past hawkers and taxi touts. Disoriented we headed for the exit and took a taxi straight to our guesthouse. Peru is a much poorer country in comparison with Chile or Argentina and this was most evident when we hit the urban sprawl of Peru’s second largest city — Arequipa, which is famous for it’s white volcanic stone buildings and monolithic volcanoes — which can be seen from just about any angle in the city. The most notable difference between Peru and Argentina and Chile is that Peru has a much richer, more visible culture. It’s food is superb and the people are more open and friendly to tourists. Arequipa was also a great place to kick off our visit to the country. As large as it is, the main attractions are situated within a 10 block radius from the central square — the Plaza de Armas. Founded in 1540 on a pre-Incan settlement, the city has some fantastic examples of Spanish-colonial architecture, beautiful churches and a generally laid back atmosphere.
The country is made up of three distinct regions. The dry, desert-like coastal region in the west. The high Andean plains running up the centre that eventually give way to the Amazon jungle in the east. Arequipa is situated in the dry zone halfway between the sea and the Altiplano. On one side of the city is the desert and on the other, is the dramatic backdrop of volcanoes, El Misti, Chachani and Picchu Picchu. The location of Arequipa lends itself to some devastating natural disasters — some of which have virtually leveled the entire city. In fact, an earthquake as recent as 2001 caused great damage, leaving many of the beautiful churches in a state of disrepair. Thankfully, Arequipeñans take a lot of pride in their city and you would be hard-pressed to find any evidence of the catastrophic event in the buildings today.
When we arrived in Arequipa, we immediately noticed the amount of food being sold on the streets. This was a good sign and reminded me a lot of South East Asia. This is in stark contrast with Chile and Argentina. Where Chile has very plain, bland food and Argentina has little variation, Peru has just about anything one can imagine. A visit to the central market in Arequipa was a revelation. Fruit and vegetables are stacked to the ceiling. There is a section solely for potatoes — of which Peru has some 4000 varieties. A section for meat, chicken and fish. Even a section for offal. One side of the market is dedicated to lunch and breakfast. On our forays into the market we ate some of Peru’s most famous foods. Ceviche: raw fish cooked in lime juice, served with copious amounts of coriander, roasted corn kernels and red onions. Rocoto Relleno: chilli peppers stuffed with a meat and cheese filling. Chicharron: crispy deep fried pork served with a salad of red onions and peppers and a spicy chilli sauce. Even the ubiquitous roast chicken was succulent and delicious. A favourite, and a meal we went back for over and over, was the Ceviche Combinado at Cevicheria El Oriental. It was a mixed ceviche containing tiny fish fillets, squid and mussels accompanied by a thick potato and bean gravy, fried rice and a sweet potato on the side. The meal also included a free cup of Chicha Morada, a drink made from purple maize which is boiled in pineapple rind, cinnamon and cloves. Lime juice and sugar is then added to finish it off. The whole meal cost us S7 each or around $2 and the ladies behind the counter refilled our plates a few times too, without our even asking, mid-spoonful!
Arequipa is known to Peruvians as the Ciudad del Blanco — the White City. The buildings are built from a particularly porous, white volcanic stone mined nearby. The dramatic cathedral on the Plaza de Armas being the most spectacular of these buildings. With two huge towers, stretching nearly 40m into the air the cathedral is probably the most photographed building in the city. Inside, the cathedral is no less beautiful with colonial era paintings and marble statues of the 12 apostles. It is one of the few cathedrals in the world that is allowed to fly the Vatican flag.
The streets around the central plaza are lined with beautiful, old stone buildings. Built from the same volcanic rock as the cathedral, today they house banks, museums, hotels and restaurants. During the Spanish colonial rule they were ornately decorated, stately homes for rich Spanish businessmen. One of the most famous of Arequipa’s sights is the Santa Catalina Convent. Taking up a whole city block, it was once the home to 120 Dominican nuns and is a city within a city. The nunnery was built in 1580 by a rich widow, Maria de Guzman, and was for nuns who came from very wealthy homes. In the myriad of rooms and chambers, this is evidenced by the rather large living quarters for each nun which included a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, sitting room, servants quarters and separate entrances for servants and nuns. The nuns lived in absolute solitude and were not allowed to even speak to visitors face-to-face. Their lives however, were rather lavish and to become a nun in the monastery families would need to pay a dowry of approximately 2400 silver coins or in today’s terms US$150 000. Everything they needed was to be found within the walls of the nunnery, including a vegetable garden and guinea pig farm.
In 1871, the pope sent Sister Josefa Cadena to reform the monastery. She sent all the riches of the monastery back to Europe and freed all the slaves and servants. The nuns were then forced to become more humble and give up their riches.
Today a small portion of the convent is still used by a group of 40 nuns. They are under a less strict set of rules and are allowed to even leave the convent into the city outside. The rest of the building is now a very well looked after museum and one of Arequipa’s main tourist attractions.
Another attraction Arequipa is famous for is the Ice Princess — an Incan mummy affectionately known as Juanita. In 1995 an American archeologist called Johan Reinhard was studying Incan ruins at the top of Peru’s many gigantic volcanoes. At the time, a volcano near Arequipa, Sabancaya, was erupting and this gave him the opportunity to study the top of neighboring Ampato volcano as the settling ash had melted it’s snow cap. When Reinhard arrived in Arequipa, he was told by a local guide that he had spotted something that looked like a mummy lying on the side of the volcano’s crater on his last expedition to the summit. Reinhard jumped at the news and put together a team to scale the 6300m mountain. When he reached the summit he was astonished at what he found. A bundle of cloth, no bigger than a large dog had rolled 60m down the side of the crater after it had been dislodged by earth tremors in the eruption. It was the frozen remains of a 12-year old girl. The only part of her not in pristine condition was her face, which had been desiccated by the sun after her shroud had been damaged from her plunge into the crater. She had been frozen in her tomb for nearly 600 years, ironically the last time Sabancaya had erupted, so she is in fact not a mummy as she was not strictly mummified. As a human sacrifice it is incredible that she was taken to the peak of a six thousand metre volcano, where the temperature is between -20 and -30 degrees celcius.
Juanita wasn’t the only sacrifice found on Ampato. Lower down the slopes the archeological team discovered 3 more mummies over the next 2 years. Due to how well the mummies are preserved, we are able to get a glimpse into the lives of the Incas, especially the sacrificial ceremonies that were held at the top of these volcanoes. The children that were sacrificed were chosen by the Incan priests for their purity. They were also fed a high protein diet, in some cases for up to a year before their deaths. In the case of Juanita, she was virtually perfect. Her teeth, bones and skin showed no signs of disease, lending more weight to the fact that these children were considered worthy of the gods. The families of the children were given high esteem and rewards and in the case of Juanita, may even have been royal themselves. The sacrificial party would start their journey from Cusco — the Incan capital and trek vast distances to get to the base of the volcanoes. Ampato is roughly 240km from Cusco and the route possibly crossed the 2 deepest canyons in the world, running along the Andes. Once at the base of Ampato they would have had to climb from an altitude of 3500m to 6300m. Depending on the time of year, the last 1500m would have been covered in thick ice and snow, where the temperature would have been around -25 degrees celcius.
At the top of the volcano the Incan priests prepared the area for sacrifice. The child would have had great difficulty staying awake due to the high altitude and freezing conditions. Bags of coca leaves were found on her body as well as in the vicinity. Analysis of her stomach contents shows that she ate a meal of vegetables 6–8 hours before her death. She was also partially drugged with coca and other herbs. CT scans of her skull show that she died from a heavy blow to the head caused by a blunt object. This was generally the method used to kill the other sacrificial mummies too.
Juanita is important to archaeology because the Incas had no form of writing, which leaves most of what we know about them to Spanish chronicles and interpretations of their ruins and artifacts. As she was frozen and not freeze dried like many other mummies on these volcanos, her body is virtually perfectly preserved. DNA studies have shown that she can be associated with a tribe that lived in present-day Panama.
The visit to the Catholic University’s Museum in Arequipa to see the ice maiden in her frozen glass case was both fascinating and bone chilling. It was also a pertinent reminder of how advanced the Incas had been as they were able to travel to and survive at such high altitudes. Every time I looked up at the volcanoes surrounding the city I was reminded of how important these landmarks were to the people that lived near to them and still are today. The rivers are fed by their glaciers. The rock is used to build cities. The soil is incredibly fertile due to their eruptions and their anger is personified in earthquakes and gigantic ash clouds. The Incas were willing to do anything to appease the gods that lived there.
Arequipa is a great place to visit. The food is good. The museums and churches are very beautiful. There are fantastic activities in the area, such as volcano trekking, mountain biking or river rafting. Most people come to Arequipa as part of the route from Cusco through to Lake Titicaca and onto Bolivia, but I could see many wanting to spend extra days just enjoying the sunshine and soaking up the atmosphere of an ancient Peruvian city.
