Arequipa Mercado

Our Arequipa tour included the city market, very interesting to us because of all the things we had never seen before...

The mercado

Peru boasts (yes, boasts) of 3,000 varieties of potatoes; one of
our guides said 4,000, but then he was the one who claimed the
Pieta in Puna was authentic and the one in the Vatican was
only a copy

Popcorn store; some of the corn kernels are thumbnail sized

Spare animal parts

Yuge fish, 3 feet long, half a foot thick

More fishes

Among the 4,000 varieties of potato

Among the 5,000 varieties of Peruvian potatoes

Ex-roosters

Memories of Kauai; vengeance is mine

Among the 6,000 varieties of Peruvian potatoes; under the
hundred pound sack, is a small man, my age; travel often
makes you wonder at the way the cards were dealt

Muy interessante...freeze-dried potatoes, the
old-fashioned way: high in the Andes, freeze
in snow for days, then air-dry for days

Frutas

Including many new to us

Ditto

Potato-bread with cute faces; among the 7,000 varieties

The juice bar, which extends the entire width of the large
building; there must be 50 independent stations

Big corn

Beans?

Grains

Hat aisle

Ornaments for ceremonial occasions, weddings,
birthdays, bar mitzvahs, etc; need a real
stuffed baby alpaca?

Maybe an alpaca fetus?

Not so much cheese

Lots of coca leaves

Does you church need a Mary Magdaline?

Arequipa Scenes, 2

More miscellaneous scenes from Arequipa...

In the Plaza de Armas; nicest we have seen, said to be the
nicest in South America

Muy importante: outside every government office, municipal,
provincial, national, you'll find one or more escribenos--
scribes--armed with portable typewriter and the various forms
required for the various transactions at the office...bill of
purchase, taxes, marriage application, whatever; the one on
the left was using the hunt-and-peck system

More of the beautiful Plaza

Three sides are the covered double arcades; the fourth is the
cathedral

Us, there

With exception of Bordeaux, the strangest cathedral I have seen,
architecturally; the towers are at the bow and stern, starboard
side

Street scene

Looking back into the Plaza

Pix from the very nice Casa de mi Abuela; our only complaint
is a fatal one: the place had no heat, nada, no central heat, no
room units to loan; night-time temps were in the higher 40s;
you shower while your partner heats the bathroom with the
hair dryer

Remember the two cages birds from Hitchcock's The Birds?

I think the Giardino's are of Italian descent

Kiddie playhouse off the breakfast area

Early morning street scene--I was hoping to catch a glimpse of
Misti

Saw plenty of Chachani, however

And Pichu Pichu

Inside the stark, uninteresting cathedral

Local specialties at a pretty good restaurant...fried guinea pig
(tastes like chicken)(they say)

And alpaca with quinoa; yum

Arequipa Scenes, 1

LANTAM got us from Bean City to Arequipa in good order. It was the first flight we've done in South America that was on-time and without (numerous) gate changes, and so a little scary. What could be wrong? I wondered. Anyway, a driver was waiting for us in Arequipa. For the next several days we would be in the care of Giardino Tours, for guides, transportation, and hotels. BTW, Arequipa is known as the "white city" since much of the historic building is of the white tufa (lava stone) spewed from the volcanoes long ago. Really is white

Arequipa is a city approaching 1 million in size, Peru's second
largest; it was raining when we arrived

Our room at La Casa de mi Abuela, 4-5 blocks from the Plaza
de Armas

Walking to breakfast our first morning we were stunned to see
how close the volcanoes are...this is Chacani, extinct

To the right, the Pichu Pichu group, also extinct; not pictured,
Misti, not extinct, even closer, but obscured by clouds and urban
clutter; we'd see it as we left town for Colca Canyon

The extensive terracing is pre-Columbian

We did a half-day tour of Arequipa that started
in the suburb of Yanahuara; here, a calvary in
the parish church there; in Peruvian calvaries,
all the symbols/attributes of the Crucifiction
are displayed

Virtually the only thing of interest to me about
Latin American Catholic churches is where the
indigenous religion occasionally pokes through,
whether overlooked or merely tolerated by the
priests and bishops, etc; three Incan/Quchuan
symbols to look for are the condor, the puma,
and the serpent; we spotted two of the three
here

Facade

Is this what a saint looks like? Really?

Arequipa is at only 7,600 feet, but I was
already feeling a bit sluggish; a relief to see
the van came equipped with oxygen; we'd see
more of these on tourist buses and in hotels;
for the next week we'd function at altitudes
between 11,000 and 15,000 feet; time to start
taking the Diamox!

Now we are in the centro historico; another interesting saint in
the Jesuit monastery

Flora

Cloister; it's now all a collection of nicer shoppes

In the monastery chapel

Done in "Brazilian" style since this monastery primarily trained
missionaries to head into the Amazon

"And here's what you'll be eating, Brothers;
the blue berries are particularly good for snake
bite"

Altar of main monastery church; not all the
gold went to Spain

Religious mannequins must be a thriving business in Latin
America

Life-sized too

Knave view

Outside, facade, yes! There's a serpent!

Head and mouth

Full facade