Convents, Corpses, Condors and Canyons

The first stop on our whirlwind Peruivan adventure was Arequipa and canyon country. On Monday night, we took a night bus the 16 hours from Lima to Arequipa, and boy does Peru do bus travel well. Some buses are nicer than others, we went with a middle of the road comfort level and the seats reclined nearly horizontal (and were wide enough for me to curl up in), we were served two meals, and the bus had wi-fi capacity!

I really liked what we saw of Arequipa, though we only spent one day there. If we weren’t trying to do so much in so little time, I wouldn’t have minded an extra day to explore. The town is a nice mix of new and old: it’s definitely been modernized yet the buildings and the roads all still look historical. Most buildings are made from this pretty white volcanic rock and on a clear day, the cathedral in the center of town is flanked by two volcanoes (El Misti and Chachani).

Plaza del Armas (how cool are those birds?!)

The two sights we checked out were the Monasterio de Santa Catalina and the Museo Santury. The Santa Catalina Monastery is a huge 20,000-sq meter convent which at times feels a little like a rat maze. The monastery used to be home to 450 nuns, and 30 are still living in a tourist free section of the complex. The first part of the convent is the novice cloister, where would-be nuns took a four year vow of silence to work and pray, and then at the end of four years they decided whether to join the monastery. My favorite part of this section was the murals of each bible section you are supposed to study every session, one for each bead on the rosary.

Past this point, no talking for 4 years!

Bible verses cheat sheet

The next area is the orange cloister, around which many nuns’ cells are located along with the mortuary. Streets connect the other parts of the monastery, including many more cells, chapels, a laundry area and a communal kitchen. Though I don’t love exploring churches all day long, the monastery was cool to see and some parts had a similar spiritual feel to the Buddhist monasteries I saw in Tibet, but the clear income disparities within the convent rubbed me the wrong way: Some nuns had really nice multi-room cells, including quarters for servants, and other had very simple one room (plus a small kitchen) cells—it all depended on what size cell the nun’s family could buy. To me, religious service is about removing material goods from consideration and living a life completely centered on spirituality; having different luxury levels for different nuns seemed to fly contrary to that.

A luxury cell

The Sanctuary Museum (no pictures inside) was what I was most looking forward to in Arequipa and it did not disappoint. The museum is housed within a university and curated around the discovery and study of the perfectly frozen body of an Inca girl sacrificed on the summit of a volcano more than 500 years ago. It’s a pretty amazing story: a teenage girl, Juanita, was sacrificed at the top of the volcano and her body froze nearly immediately, then toppled off the summit, and was protected by snow and ice until 1995 when a volcano melted the ice and revealed the girl. Just 15 days later, the sight was discovered by an archeologist who pushed a rock from the summit to see where the body would have rolled, and the girl was recovered and preserved before any additional deterioration occurred. Talk about amazing timing! Juanita is not in the museum this time of year, because they are busy studying her, but they have found 4 other frozen bodies in similar (slightly less pristine) condition, one of which was on display for us to see. The museum has no signs and every visitor must be accompanied by a guide. I loved that the museum was so integrated with the scientific work, and it was amazing to learn how much they can determine about an extinct culture from archeological digs. My two favorite new fun facts about the Incas: (1) Some children were raised to be sacrificed! They were removed from their families at a young age, indoctrinated about the great service they will do for their communities, then they take part in many religious rituals until they reach sacrificial age. (2) Contrary to the Moches in the north, who thought that when you die you continue with the same responsibilities you have in life, the Incas thought that you are reborn as a baby in the afterlife, so all the girls were buried with baby sized things, like little shoes!

From Arequipa, we headed off to explore the Colca Canyon for a few days…

When I hear the world canyon, I think of Utah’s canyonlands—dry, barren, and hot. So it caught me a bit off guard when we arrived on edge of Colca Canyon on a foggy, rainy afternoon. I couldn’t see any of the canyon because the fog was so dense I couldn’t see the side of the road from the bus window. Luckily, we woke up in Cabanaconde to a beautiful mostly clear day—and a lush, green, inviting canyon surrounded by snow capped peaks.

6 am; Cabanaconde, Peru

Colca Canyon

Bright and early we hopped on a bus to go see the Cruz del Cóndor lookout a bit outside town. This is a tourist hot spot, and many organized tours drive from Arequipa to see the condors in the morning, but taking the bus from Cabanaconde we got to see all the local women bringing their crafts and goods to the lookout to sell—much more fun than a bus full of tourists. For the first hour, there was little activity, just admiring the canyon and stretching in the sunlight. Then, at 8:30, boom, all the condors woke up!! We saw about five leave the nest for the day, including two that came ridiculous close to where we were standing. One was within ten feet of our heads—I got scared and ducked, but I bet it was pretty cool to see. The condors are so fun to watch—they are huge but barely have to flap, just using the thermals to gain elevation and their tails as rudders to steer.

Condor (with no zoom!) right before it almost hit us

After the condor sighting, we headed back to Cabanaconde to hike down into the canyon. From Cabanaconde to the Sangalle oasis is 5 km, and descends straight down the canyon wall. At its deepest Colca Canyon is 3,191 meters deep, more than twice the depth of the Grand Canyon. We were told the hike should take 2 hours down and 3-4 back up, so I was very happy that we did it in 1hr 50min down and 2hr 10min up—despite the 5 weeks living at sea level without exercising, I may still be a Colorado baby. The hike was beautiful because you could see all the different landscapes in canyon country, from the snowcapped peaks all the way down to the red rock surrounding the water, and the excursion was the perfect mix of challenging, miserable bits and awesome parts. (We did get rained on a bit, and I learned that a 10 year old rain jacket may not be as water repellant as it once was.) The oasis at the bottom was kind of weird, because after this long hike surrounded by amazing natural beauty, you end up at an artificial pool. Ha.

Sangalle oasis