Arequipa and the Colca Valley

Founded in 1540, Arequipa is ringed by three magnificent volcanoes — El Misti, Chachani and Pikchu Pikchu. Its Plaza de Armas with its tall palms and elegant fountains can compete with the best cities in Spain’s Andalucia region. Even following a fitful night’s sleep on the bus, what with a number of loops along the route, I found myself awake to this beautiful and graceful city. The plaza was perfect for people watching, where I observed an elderly citizen balancing a manual typewriter on his lap (a relative of Peruvian writer Mario Llosa Vargas, perhaps?) and dozens of local senoritas eating ice cream cones until — forgive me — the cows come home.

At the top of our must-see list was Santa Catalina, a 16th Century convent that is literally a city within a city that quickly made any lingering memories of the 21st century disappear. After a short trip to Las Torres de Ugarte Hotel to drop our bags, only a stone’s throw away from the convent, we headed out on foot.

Quiet niches and a labyrinth of cobblestone passageways lead to meeting halls, sanctuaries and a wealth of cells that comprise the nuns’ living quarters. Ornate furnishings, delicate servingware and statuary fill the cells of the wealthier, proving that earthly belongings were not totally relinquished to the outside world. Some of the streets were named after Spanish cities and here cerulean blues, tangerines, and lemon yellow colored walls greeted our eyes. (We heard it’s best to visit at night by candlelight but for myself, I liked the sunwashed, buoyant effect it had on me.) If you should go, remember when turning a street corner within and without this walled wonderland, to glance upward. Catching a view of this landscape with its cobalt blue skies and snow-topped peaks will take your breath away as it did ours.

But beauty often comes at a price. The entire region lies within the Southern Hemisphere’s notorious ring of fire and every few hundred years, the earth will shake, rattle and roll from thunderous upheavals to more frequent teasing tremors. (An 8.1 quake on the Richter scale struck the city as recently as 2001 but the colonial sillar core remained largely intact.) There’s more to be said on the topic, but our minds and stomachs were again focused on Gaston Acurio, that irrepressible chef making waves back in Lima. It was time to visit him again.

The historic section boasts not one but two restaurants of his creation; however, reservations are a must. Chicha is stylishly set in a colonial mansion, specializing in such offerings as rocoto relleno or stuffed spicy chili peppers. Cuy or guinea pig is part of the indigenous menu, but you can relax if you have childhood memories of a certain pet — the menu is chock-full of alternate choices. La Trattoria del Monasterio is an intimate dining spot carved out of a thick wall of the Santa Catalina convent with Peruvian-inspired risottos and pastas for lunch and dinner. It was here where we enjoyed a late pasta lunch in one of the small nests of room — banquettes lined with bright fabric pillows — and just enough quiet we could relive our special hours spent within Santa Catalina’s walls that morning.

We returned to the hotel just in time for an afternoon siesta on the roof, a stunning view of El Misti in the distance. In retrospect, I think it was smart that we avoided too much conversation about the number of living volcanoes within sight. Peru may seem an adventurous yet relatively safe getaway when compared to other hot spots on the globe, but one can never be sure how and when disaster may strike, manmade or otherwise.

As our Colca Valley overnight excursion with its dizzying canyon heights was drawing near, we popped the altitude pills the physician back home had recommended. The next morning, feeling quite in control, we headed for the breakfast room, where the resident chef took orders for waffles and eggs just the way customers liked. (Just remember, the word for scrambled is revuelto, not revolt.) Fortified and re-energized, we headed out to our small shuttle bus, the top of Misti clearly visible in the distance.

(This was not a final farewell to Arequipa. The massive Catedral, the centerpiece of the Plaza de Armas and the Museo Santuarios Andinos was still on our list of must-visits upon our return. There we would encounter Juanita, an ice princess sacrificed by Inca priests atop a volcano and buried for more than five centuries. If that visit whets the curiosity, consider this: she is now preserved for posterity, not mummified.)

The Colca Valley

We were now in the hands of Elfar, our guide into the Colca Canyon. If his name suggests a mischievous elf, you wouldn’t be far off in your guess. With his thick-framed glasses, jet black hair and a broad-toothed smile, he looked ready to sell the most expensive car in an Arequipa showroom. He was the consummate actor but he believed his babble and I liked that about him. Whether emphasizing the name of volcanoes and resident cacti and then, just to make sure we understood, repeating his description two or three times more, he would then point dramatically at a herd of wild vicuna or a suspension bridge over the canyon with absolute certainty, “There, at ten o’clock, look!”

A few words of advice about altitude adjustment should be mentioned. Short one or two week stays in Peru are often the case for travelers with limited time. The itinerary may start in Lima with a quick flight to Cusco, the former capital of the Inca Empire, before heading off to the heralded ruins of Machu Picchu. Situated 11,000 feet above sea level, four or five days in Cusco’s thin air are recommended to relax and drink lots of liquid, including coca-leaf tea (an old Inca tradition that allows a quick absorption of alkaloids helping respiration and eliminating fatigue), before undergoing the strenuous walking a visit to Machu Picchu entails. Some travelers with ample enough time may choose to visit the Colca region with its dizzying heights after their visit to Cusco, instead of before as we had chosen. To give you some idea, the Colca excursion was over 16,000 feet at our peak height.

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