wandering in arequipa

i guess it's time for me to write a bit more about arequipa. okay, one day of our time in arequipa, i can handle that. in an attempt to tire myself for our 1am departure the next day, i woke up early sunday morning. like 6-something-am early. ari and amy took decided another route was preferable to my "early to bed, early to rise" method (see ari's next post for more on that...), so they took advantage of the chance to sleep in. so i set off from the hostel a bit past seven to do a bit more exploring of the city. like any good jew, i popped into some churches to see what this whole sunday mass thing was all about and after crashing various religious ceremonies, went to the plaza for some people watching. and i found a lot of people. for some reason, the powers that be decided that 8.30am on a sunday morning is the perfect time for some military procession / parade / ceremony (complete with guns and marching bands and baton twirling) so after getting my fill of all things uniform, i headed off for some breakfast. then it was time to explore the market... it was a typical market, a bit on the large side, filled with veggies and hats and dead chickens and shoe laces and fresh juice and crafts. after some more wandering and meandering, it was noon and time to head back to the hostel to meet amy and ari.

we headed out to the amazing world heritage site, the santa catalina monastery (yeah, i don't know why they call it a monastery and not a nunnery/convent). my facts may be way off, but from what i can remember, it was establish hundreds of years ago by some rich woman who gave all her money to establish the monastery. many rich families would continue to send their daughters there, but after time it got a bit of a reputation for, uhm, well, let's just say not for religious piety. the women tended to lead their lives as if they weren't in a monastery, so eventually someone came along and imposed an isolation on the nuns that lasted hundreds of years and was finally done away with about 30 years ago. the nuns would only talk to others from the outside would through bars and could only receive items through a turning dumbwaiter type device. and anyone who wanted to visit, had to get special permission from the arch bishop of arequipa. good times.

the monastery was gorgeous. and huge. it is filled with many small winding paths (all named after cities in spain) and when you visit you can wander through the cloisters and in an out of the older rooms and kitchens. the whole place is really peaceful and serene and the atmosphere is a bit like seville in spain. was definitely worth the steep 25 soles admission!

after wandering the monastery for a few hours, we finally got around to getting some lunch... apparently 3pm is not an acceptable time for eating lunch though, cause we had to seek out place after place before settling for some cold mush. oh well, at least it was vegetarian.

the rest of the day was fairly uneventful. some more wandering. some attempts at shopping. some went for internet. others had their cake. there was packing and showering and other such groundbreaking activities. but i guess i will leave that to ari to fill you in on...