Arequipa

Department	Arequipa,2300 m.a.s.l. (7544 ft) - the second biggest city in the country,with861,000 inhabitants is well known as "the withe city" because of the color of the volcanic stone (sillar) used in the construction of its colonial style building. Its main economical resources are agriculture and mining. It is here where the best garments of alpaca and vicuña fibre are elaborated. Arequipa is situated on the south of the country in the range of volcanoes ,dominated by 3 volcanoes Misti ,almost conic shaped ,Chachani and Picchu Picchu .Arequipa's food is one of the best in the country and can be tasted in a " picanteria".In Arequipa the weather isdry and more than 300 days are sunny whit an average temperature of 24 C° (75 ° F) by day and 10 ° C (50 ° F) by night.
Location	1009 km -627 mi to Lima by road -14 h
Visit	All the year
Attractions	Colca Canyon, National Reserve Salinas and Aguada Blanca, Cruz del Condor, Laguna del Indio, Stone forest of Maucarquipa

plaza armas arequipa

AREQUIPA CITY
The fertile valley in which Arequipa is situated has been occupied back to 5000 – 6000 BCE. In the 15th century, the region, then occupied by Aymara Indians, was conquered by the Inca and served as an important supplier of agrarian products to the Inca Empire. The modern city of Arequipa was founded on 15 August 1540, by Garcí Manuel de Carbajal, an emissary of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. One year later, King Charles V of Spain gave it the rank of 'city' and the coat of arms that it still bears. Spanish influence left many relics and colonial architecture, which reminds the visitor of the city's colonial past, when it was the city with the highest proportion of Spanish population in Viceroyalty of Peru. This led Arequipa to develop a large Peruvian population as its demographics changed and grew over the centuries. Since the late 1940's, however, there has been a huge and increasing immigration from the Peruvian sierra, thus changing the demographic and cultural character of the city. Throughout history Arequipa remained relatively isolated during colonial and early republican times, but that changed in 1870 when a Southern railroad to the coastal port of Mollendo was inaugurated, opening trade via the Pacific Ocean. The building and expansion of more roads in the 1930s also led to a direct connection with the Pan-American Highway, strengthening Arequipa's links to the rest of the Americas. Since then, the city has remained the center of commerce between Lima and all of southern Peru. Arequipa served as a bastion of nationalism during Peru's struggle for independence from Spain in the early 19th century. Later, it served as a rallying point during the War of the Pacific (1879 – 1883) with Chile. The city has two principal universities — the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa, the local state university (founded 1828), and the Universidad Católica de Santa María (founded in 1961), a private institution. One of Peru's largest stadiums, Estadio Monumental de la UNSA, is also located in Arequipa and hosted some of the 2004 American Soccer Cup soccer games, attracting many tourists as well as locals. As the second largest city in Peru, Arequipa is influenced by both Andalusian and Spanish Colonial ideas and architecture, such as the popular Santa Catalina Monastery, the Goyeneche Palace, Casa del Moral, and the popular district of Yanahuara. Arequipa has many valuable archaeological and tourist resources including the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world and an ideal spot for observing the magnificent Andean Condor. Arequipa is served by the Rodriguez Ballon International Airport. The city is located at the foothill of three mountains. Arequipa is dry and sunny all year long.

SANTA CATALINA MONASTERY

SANTA CATALINA MONASTERY
The founder of the monastery was a rich widow, Maria de Guzman. The tradition of the time indicated that the second son or daughter of a family would enter religious service, and the convent accepted only women from high-class Spanish families. Each nun at Santa Catalina had between one and four servants or slaves, and the nuns invited musicians to perform in the convent, gave parties and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. Each family paid a dowry at their daughter's entrance to the convent, and the dowry owed to gain the highest status, indicated by wearing a black veil, was 2,400 silver coins, equivalent to US$50,000 today. The nuns were also required to bring 25 listed items, including a statue, a painting, a lamp and clothes. The wealthiest nuns may have brought fine English china and silk curtains and rugs. Although it was possible for poorer nuns to enter the convent without paying a dowry, it can be seen from the cells that most of the nuns were very wealthy.

JUANITAS ICE MAIDEN

Juanita (also known as "The Ice Maiden") was discovered on the top of Mount Ampato near Arequipa, Peru, in 1995 by Johan Reinhard. She was 12 to 14 years old when she was sacrificed and is believed to have died about 500 years ago.
Although she was frozen in the frigid temperatures on Mount Ampato, her body was discovered because a nearby volcano had caused Ampato's snowcap to melt. The undisturbed site of her burial included many items left as offerings to the gods. Two other children's bodies were discovered near her.

The Museo Santuarios Andinos Andean Sanctuaries Museum of the Catholic University of Santa Maria has as its exclusive attraction in the Lady of the Ampato, the best preserved pre Hispanic mummy in the world. Kindly known by the people asJuanita, the mummy was in September of 1995 on the summit of the Ampato Volcano at 6288 metres above sea lebvel by the investigators Johan Reinhard and Jose Antonio Chávez, and the mountain climber Miguel Zárate.
Being surrounded, as it was, by valuable offerings (ceramics and gold and silver pieces), the investigators concluded that Juanita - a girl of 12 to 14 years old would have been sacrificed to honour the snow white Ampato, considered a sacred mountain or Apu, according to the cosmovision of the old Peruvians.
The studies made show that the young girl was sacrificed approximately in 1466, when the Inca Tupac Yupanqui governed. It is also thought that she would have been a so called Palla, that is to say, a woman dedicated to the service of the Sun and the Inca.
Before the sacrifice, the Lady of Ampato was fed with a special diet of grasses and cocaine leaf, to free her from the death pains; and, on the day of the ceremony, they wrapped her with fine articles of clothing and showy hairdos with feathers. After being studied and exhibited in diverse places around the world; Juanita was transferred to the museum Andean Sanctuaries, inaugurated on the 26 of March of 1997, to show the world the conclusions of the Project Andean Sanctuaries of the Andean South, led by the anthropologist Reinhard and the archaeologist Chávez. It is located on the La Merced street 110 in the Colonial Centre of Arequipa. It is open to the public from Mondays to Saturdays from 9:00 hours to the 18:00 hours; and Sundays from 9:00 hours to the 15:00 hours.

YANAHUARA VIEW POINT

The Mirador de Yanahuara View Point is a complex of beautiful arches of white sillar ashlar volcanic stone constructed in the XIXth Century. By its excellent location it is a place you must visit, to get a bird point’s view of the urban geography of Arequipa and to obtain superb photographies of the Misti Volcano, the giant that guards the City.
The view point is next to the Main Square of Yanahuara and the Church of San Juan, a temple of Baroque façade and austere interior, erected in 1750.
Located to 2 kilometres from the Colonial Centre of Arequipa, Yanahuara is a showy district of narrow streets, large houses of ample orchards and flavourful so called picanterías (restaurants of typical food).

SABANDIA WATERMILL

-Molino de Sabandía (Sabandía Mill)
Located in Sabandía
Constructed in 1785, it represents the typical architecture of the zone where the use of sillar stone predominates. It is characterized by solid supports and rustic balconies. Stone grinding wheel techniques for wheat processing can be viewed here as well.

MANSION OF HUASACACHE

Huasacache mansion

Huasacache is a place located in the beautiful countryside of Arequipa, the rivers Socabaya, Paucarpata and Postrero water an important group of lands
Starting from the foundation of Arequipa in 1540, the valley of Socabaya became a Spanish distribution.
The founder of Arequipa Don Garcí Manuel of Carbajal received a plot of land in Huasacache, where at the moment he built a large house and surrounding land. In 1555 his son-in-law Don Martin López requests the Town council of Arequipa that his father-in-law's country property was given to him. This fact bases historically that the founder from Arequipa had lands and lived in Huasacache.

Another of the Spaniards, present in the foundation of Arequipa, Don Martin Pérez of Lezcano acquires the aforementioned property. When he died, his wife doña Ana Gutiérrez married with Juan of Castro. He , in turn, sells the property to Don Diego Peralta Cabeza de Vaca, being passed then for inheritance to his widow doña María Robles who sold it to the Jesuit Priests in the year of 1585, for the sum of two thousand silver pesos .
The Jesuit priests settled in Huasacache and on the base of the previous habitation, they improved and they enlarged the atmospheres of the country house that they dedicated to rest and like House of Exercises. They built the Church, where San Francisco Javier image is, outstanding missionary Jesuit. The architectural structure behind of the large house dates of the XVI century, although modified with the course of the time.
When the Jesuit were expelled of all the Spanish territories in 1767, the property of Huasacache, together with more than 200 hectares of arable land, were passed to the Administration of La real junta de temporalidades.
In 1777 Don Diego Pober or Power obtained the Huasacache country property in an auction for the quantity of 68,955 silver pesos
In the year of 1785 Huasacache was acquired by Don Juan Crisóstomo de Goyeneche and Aguerrevere, Captain of the Spanish Army and Sergeant major of the Militias of Arequipa, for the sum of 720,000 reales. From then a historical relationship is established between the Goyeneche family and the Huasacache property that lasts until the year of 1947, the descendants divide and sell the property. .
The Archbishop Don José Sebastian de Goyeneche y Barreda, inherited Huasacache. Born in Arequipa in 1784, he received the Bishopric in 1817. It was a great benefactor of the city; it fomented the civil ansd religious education and he left a trust fund to build a hospital that, at the present time, it is named after him. In the year of 1821 he ordered the rebuilt of the Huasacache church, hence the year of rebuilt in the front. The crosses of Santiago and Calatraba, remind us of the military orders that were given to the first proprietors of the land .
In the year of 1981 a group of six enthusiasts fond of the architecture of the city, acquired the property that was in ruins; and after long and laborious months, the total refection of the property was achieved; that it was endowed with modern and comfortable facilities, open to the public today for their tourist visit

huasacache chapell