From the grey town of Puno we headed to the far more elegant city of Arequipa, with its white stoned colonial buildings, impressive churches and lovely plaza's. The city is also home to the Santa Catalina convent, an amazing convent built like a small town surrounded by high walls within the city and until recently never seen by the public. This little town has cobbled streets, brightly painted houses, many plaza's and is absolutely amazing! It was once home to 100's of nuns living in total seclusion from the world…doing what ever nuns do!?! You could just imagine one of the naughty nuns having a sneaky fag on the roof terrace looking at the outside world and El Misti, the imposing volcano that looks over the city. Apparently some nuns still live in the convent although we didn't see nun (sorry!). On our last night in Arequipa we discovered that when it rains here it pours, for hours the heavens opened turning the whole city in something that looked more like Venice, well without the gondolas and cornettos! So with jeans rolled up and like a couple of kids we puddled jumped round town for the evening getting totally drenched but having a great time.
Wanderlust for Life
Adventure travel around the world