Arequipa, Peru 🇵🇪
Nicole arrives early this morning, great to see her as we catch up over breakfast. Eva is also in town at a different hostel and we arrange to meet at the Museo Santuarios Andinos. This museum highlight is Juanita, the well-preserved frozen body of an Inca girl who was killed as an offering to the Inca gods in the 1500s when she was 12–15 years old.
Juanita was discovered on Mount Ampato, near Arequipa in 1995 as she had became dislodged from her grave site by an earthquake and rolled out. It is a very interesting museum that showcases fabrics and objects that the Incas buried with sacrificed children to appease the gods. I also learnt that the Incas revered ducks because they existed in each element, they can fly in the air, walk on land and swim on water.
Juanita was royalty and would have been educated in Cusco, also being tought how to survive the walk to her sacrifice which would have taken months to complete. Whilst this sounds barbaric now to drug a child and bury her, these children believed it was a great honour to be chosen to live forever alongside the gods.
Juanita is really well preserved due to the conditions on the mountain, she now sits in a temperature controlled chamber and she kind of looks back at you, but mesmerising to watch her.
Outside the temperature is hotting up and as we walk through the Plaza de Armas decide to eat lunch at a rooftop terrace. The food isn’t anything special but the view of the plaza with the volcanos behind is worth it and we spend a couple of hours here. We share the local speciality of ‘queso’ ice cream which isn’t cheese, rather milk and cinnamon based.
I manage to find a Movistar mobile shop after lunch and Nicole kindly helps translate as I secure Peruvian phone network access. This takes 3 signed and fingerprinted contract copies and visits to 4 different desks but we manage it!
We find Liam & Nikki in a ice cream shop as we all enjoy a couple of scoops. Feels like ages since I have enjoyed good ice cream (Buenos Aires still ranks as the best). Dinner tonight is Alpaca steak, I did try a bit of Eva’s cuy (guinea pig) a Peruvian favourite, but it didn’t seem different and there is very little meat.
