Chivay

I'm not sure why we stopped in Chivay. It's a regional center, perhaps, although there's little to the region...some mining, some ag, some tourism. Few people. Anyhow, we spent a while there before proceeding 5 miles down the road to our hotel and dinner.

Paying road tolls

Street scene

We checked out the small central market

Attempting to communicate with extraterrestrial aliens from
outer space

The square and main drag are lined with these more than life-
sized painted statues of characters of local legend and lore...

And in English too

We'd see a lot more of this that evening, the
real thing, although not in English too

Main square

Inside the colorful parish church

Our Lady of the Really, Really Big Dress

Baptismal, with interesting old murals

Where Holy Water comes from

Arequipa To Chivay

So on Friday, March 3rd, the Giardino van picked us up for the interpreted journey to Chivay and beyond to Coporaque and then, next day, the Colca Canyon. The journey was marred by the guide, a Peruvian supremacist who claimed to be a university professor--a part-time adjunct, I suspect, at a regional campus--and a Swiss woman who was unhappy about the service and argued interminably about what she had paid and what she was owed. Also about whatever wild claims the guide was making. Our policy has always been to go on guided group tours, however small, only as a last resort, only if there is no other way to see the site. That was the case here, and it confirmed the policy.

Early morning, I finally got to see Misti, alarmingly close to the city; and active

Arequipa swore off human vs bull fighting years ago (who likes the lop-sided
scores?), and is into bull vs bull fighting; thus the city emblem

Way out in the burbs, Jurassic Park

Up into the mountains; lots of people have died on this curve

Big cement plant; minerals are Peru's biggest industry

Backside of Pichu Pichu

Indeed; camelids, like guanacos, llamas, and alpacas; the vicunas
are wild, protected, on a national park preserve here

Other side of Misti

Alpaca country too

Alpaca drama along this Roman road; the newborn won't cross (our driver has
stopped and is waiting on the mom); really is a newborn--the placenta is still
not fully discharged from the mom; after a few minutes, the mom crosses and
retrieves the baby; all is well; we drive on

At the pass; I recalibrated my altimeter before we left Arequipa

All the peaks, volcanoes on the horizon thus identified

Cairn city; only the Norwegians are this cairn-happy

More alpacas, vicunas

Descending, below, the town of Chivay

Us, gasping

Arequipa Convento Santa Catalina

On the Arequipa tour was an hour-long visit to the convent of Saint Catalina, virtually a city within a city in the old days. In those old days, the second daughter had to go to the convent, unless the second son became a priest. Actually, it was more complicated than that. Many women no doubt thought the convent preferable to marriage anyway or a life in times of unrest, revolution, etc. Anyhow, it appeared to be a really big convent. Alas, the more we learned, the less we were impressed. It was a convent for the wealthy, virtually a collection of small houses, apartments, etc. You could bring your servants with you. They did the cooking, washing, cleaning, lived upstairs. You ate off your family's fine silver and china. All this changed in 1861, our guide said, leaving us to wonder what exactly happened in 1861. Was the surrender of Fort Sumter somehow connected with the convent system? The Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act in Great Britain? Or maybe it had something to do with the richly deserved diminution of the Church, Italian unification, Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel, et al. Anyhow, we toured the convent. But everything had changed after 1861. It's now run by the city, although 16 nuns still live there, dormitory style and support themselves via a gift store and tea shoppe.

Once you were in, there was no contact with the outside world
except through this latticed window (well, except for your
servants, who had plenty of contact, etc.)

Any gifts had to pass through this revolving
door

Typical square

In the novitiate area, instructional paintings

Novitiate's bed chamber

Novitiate cloisters

Chapel

Funeral chapel

All the deceased painted with eyes closed

Except this lady, who died the evening before,
and was not discovered until the next day;
rigor mortis had set in, and they couldn't
get her eyes closed; I guess it was against
the rules to paint her eyes closed...

Now in the regular, that is, non-novitiate, convent; sitting room

Bed chamber

Musical instrument from home

Kitchen

Oven; stairs leading to servants' quarters

Nicely landscaped

The white tufa is a marvelous water filter, here
in use

The whole place is done in red, white, and blue, and orange

Streets named after back home; I doubt that many of these
ladies were mestizos

Another sitting room

Nice china, silver

Tea shoppe

Servants' laundry area 

Spare baskets

Shrine to Sister Ana, beatified in the 80s;
sainthood pending...