Making our way up into the clouds: Tacna, Arequipa and Cuzco: 3rd - 7th April

As we have seen several times, there is no such thing as a silent bus journey in South America. The poorer the country, the noisier the journey. In Peru, we chose the poshest bus company for our journey from Tacna to Arequipa, but paying more does not guarantee a peaceful journey, it ensures a constant barrage of ‘entertainment’. With Cruz del Sur, this involved music (and always the same CD) of ‘Peruvian’ music, the usual spat of crap films and a lively game of bingo. So we arrived in Arequipa not feeling so tranquil. Nevertheless, all was forgotten on arrival at our Hostal Casablanca, where we received a very warm welcome from the lovely receptionist and were overjoyed on seeing our vaulted room with TV, sofa, private bathroom, all for the princely sum of US$30 (and not a patch on some of the more expensive, dirtier places we’d stayed at in Chile).

We could have spent more time in Arequipa as there was plenty to do, but we only had a night and a day to enjoy it, and we were also suffering from lack of oxygen due to our newly acquired 2,800 metre altitude, so had to take it easy. The Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a convent still housing nuns (and has done so for several hundred years, originally in total isolation) is a really great place to explore with its alleyways, named after Spanish towns, and its numerous nuns’ rooms (best take a look at photos). It also houses a vast collection of religious art. We also visited another pre-colombian museum (Museo Santuarios Andinos de la Universidad Católica de Santa María) which is most renowned for housing a very famous mummy, known as Juanita or the Ice Maiden.

Roughly 550 years ago, a very noble, beautiful, healthy girl of 13 or 14 years old, dressed in her very best Incan attire, set off from Cuzco on a three-month hike to the summit of Volcan Ampato (near Arequipa) with an entourage of priests and various other people. When she arrived, traumatised as she would have been by the cold, her sore feet and the very high altitude at over 6,000 metres. She would have been terrified as well. But it was nothing compared to what they had in store for her next. After having eased her pain and numbed her senses with a good dose of coca leaf-chewing and chicha (an corn-based alcoholic drink), they whacked her on the back of the head to kill her, mummified her body and buried her at the top of the Volcano with numerous Incan trinkets and coca leaves, a fate which many other noble Inca children shared. These sacrifices were commited in the belief that that by offering these poor dead children to the Incan god, Apus, they were protecting their communites from various natural disasters, such as earthquakes and, rather appriopriately (or not), erupting volcanos. It is also important to note that the Inca culture regarded nature as sacred, and that these sacrifices were not only a way of giving back to nature, but also giving something back to their ancestors (the children were thought to be rejoining them in their death). For this reason the children that were chosen were of very high birth and had no health or skin defects whatsoever.

In 1995, Juanita the Ice Maiden was found near the top of Ampato Volcano, having recently fallen down a few hundred metres from the top after the eruption of nearby Volcan Sabancaya. Her body was almost completely intact and her remains extremely well-preserved by the ice, to the point that her organs had not dehydrated (she is therefore not, technically, a mummy) which is what makes her more famous than her peers found on various other volcanos in the whole area (including northern Chile and northwest Argentina). Juanita was at the laboratory when we visited, so unfortunately we did not see her, but saw one of her fellow mummies instead, not quite so well-preserved and quite a fright to look at, found on Volcan Misti, also near Arequipa.

That evening saw us board the nightbus to Cuzco, with some trepidation as LP advised against it due to various hijackingings, not to mention dodgy driving and accidents, that tend to occur in Peru. We were somewhat comforted by the fact that Cruz del Sur not only videos everyone getting on the bus, but then again when all are seated. We were less impressed when we realised our seats at the front and top of the double-decker bus gave us full view of the driver’s rather unsavoury driving antics. After witnessing the first few overtaking manoeuvres on blind mountainous corners we decided that it would be best to shut the curtains on the premise that what we didn’t know could not hurt us. Luckily Cruz del Sur ended the usual barrage of entertainment around midnight and we would have slept very well in our comfortable seats if the two German girls opposite hadn’t thought it appropriate to wake everyone up with a couple of lively chats in the middle of the night.

Having arrived at 6:30am we had a fair bit of time to kill before we could get into our apartment, so we used it constructively by visiting the cathedral and joining mass. The cathedral is free to get into before 9am, and although technically off-limits to tourists, they are tolerated. The 50 soles we would have paid to get in, eventually went to all the beggars around the town, as we thought them somewhat more deserving than the church. Mass was less than inspiring; the Catholic Church in Peru seems to have little guidance to offer its congregation, apart from worshipping the usual holy trio, and repeating largely the same things over and over again. The indigenous population in Peru is devoutly Catholic. According to our Inca Trail guide, when the Inca king was kidnapped by the Spanish and then killed, despite the Incas having paid the ransom of two rooms of gold and silver (clearly this wasn’t enough for our greedy European forebears), the Inca population was told, with the head of the king for all to see, that they would worship the Spanish god, or else. So the church appears to have played a more mediaeval and repressive role around these parts. However, the locals were not completely subjugated. On looking closer at Cusqueño religious art, the indigenous population have conveyed their own version of events with their own streak of irony. Francisco Pizarro, the Spaniard who discovered and conquered Cuzco, is portrayed in place of Judas in the Last Supper painting hung in the cathedral.

A visit to Qorikancha (an Inca Temple), now called Iglesia de Santo Domingo, reveals much about Cuzco’s history. It was here that the Spanish first set their avaricious eyes on solid gold and silver statues and replicas of babies, animals and food, not to mention the walls and altars being lined with huge sheets of the stuff. Gold was very important as it was used to represent the sun, while silver was equally important in its representation of the moon. Modern eyes will never set eyes on any of these things as the Spanish ran off with the lot, melted it down, and we assume that most of it can now be found in churches around Spain in the form of gaudy candlesticks and trinkets and jewellery to decorate the thousands of virgins paraded around towns every Easter. All very Christian indeed!

This building was also very important as it still has many Incan foundations in the form of the their famous walls, made of huge bricks so perfectly fitted together and without any kind of concrete, we humble moderners still have to work out how they did it. The huge bricks were of a trapezoidal shape ensuring that buildings would not fall during earthquakes. Spanish constructions since then have proved somewhat less durable and have not survived the earthquakes that terrorise the area every so often. Incan walls can be found in many ruins around Cuzco and the Sacred Valley. Another must-visit in the area is Saqsayhuaman (unfortunately sounds like ’sexy woman’), where one can also find some excellent workmanship in more Inca walls, although very little remains today as once again the Spanish ran off with most of the stones to build their own houses. Despite this the site is sizeable and represents one of the most militarily significant sites around Cuzco, as it was here that the last few battles between the Incas and the Spanish occurred before the former finally lost and retreated to Ollantaytambo (more about that later). The view over Cuzco and the surrounding valley from the site is excellent.

The Incas were very devout in worshipping the Pachamama (Mother Earth) and as we have seen, showed the utmost respect for their natural surroundings. Unfortunately, although still worshipped in theory (before drinking it is traditional to spill the liquid on the ground as a tribute to her), the quantity of rubbish that is generated by locals and tourists alike and lack of rubbish-collecting facilities means that this respect has not survived to the modern day.

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