Today visited Arequipa which is south of Lima and Peru´s second largest city.
To be honest we were not really expecting that much but this place has a lot more to it than you read in the guide books.
The first thing you notice is how prosperous it is. This is directly related to the fact the city has mines of gold, silver and copper.
It is surrounded by 3 active volcanoes and they have suffered earthquake damage in the past. This particularly affects the older building as most of the modern ones have some form of anti seismic foundations.
It has a strong Spanish influence and many of the building are made of white volcanic rock, although you would not know it as most of them are painted !!!
We visited the ice maiden musemum which contains Juanita. She is a young girl sacrificed 500 years ago after drinking a sedative before being bashed over the head !!! She had fallen into the volcanic crater and was discovered in 1995. She is retained at the same temprature that she was found in to preserve her -27 degrees celsius.
During the day it is t-shirt weather although it got cold at lunchtime in the shade. Our tour leader decided to have guinea pig which did not seem too bad until someone pointed out that you could still see its top and bottom teeth !!!!
Tonight we are on the town in search of a Pisco Sour, the traditional Peruvian alcoholic drink !!!!
