Oct 11, Tuesday

Oct 11, Tuesday

What a busy day I had today.   Was awake much too early so I decided to have an early breakfast and spend the morning walking around the historical district.   I walked around the main Plaza de Armas

Plaza de Armas

Plaza de Armas

La catedral en Plaza de Armas

I then went to visit El Monasterio de Santa Catalina. This cloister was first opened in 1579 and grew into a walled town within a town. It is a huge complex with its own streets. It is quite impressive. It was partially destroyed and rebuilt a number of times because of earthquakes (1784 & 1868, and again in 2000). The architectural style therefore varies from area to area. Haven’t checked out the web site yet, but if you want to take a look www.santacatalina.org.pe  

Paintings used for contemplation

 The Orange Tree Cloister

One of the streets within the monastery

From there I walked around a number of streets and decided to stop for a coffee and a bite to eat at around noon.   (Must mention that the coffee served for breakfast at my hotel was YUCK !)   So I was in need of a nice cup.   Continued walking around until about 1 and then headed back to the hotel to change before going on my 4 hour Arequipa Bus Tour.    This turned out to be well worth it.  Almost 300  pictures taken today…  and that’s not including what I filmed !

Volcan Chachani (Wife) 6,075 meters

Volcan Misti (Lord) 5,825 meters

Volcan Pichu Pichu (mountain mountain) since there are two distinct peaks 5,664 meters

 There are three huge volcanoes surrounding Arequipa, which may explain the number of earthquakes they have had.

 The tour included the country side as well and turned out to be quite different

View from el Mirador de Carmen Alto

  Lady with a falcon at La Mansion del Fondador

We were back in the city by 6 pm so I decided to have dinner before heading back to the hotel.  Headed back to the Plaza de Armas and found a restaurant on the 2^nd floor of one of the Portales.   I decided to be adventurous and try the breaded “Cui”.   For those of you who are squeamish, you may want to stop reading now and skip to the sign off.   

Cui are guinea pigs, which are raised like chickens.   They reproduce quite quickly and provide poor families with an easy source of protein.   I was expecting the plate to look like quail legs, or frog legs, but to my horrified surprise, the entire animal was splayed out on my plate;  head, claws and all !   I almost threw up the plate of veggies I had just eaten.   As soon as the waiter put the plate down in front of me, I saw the head, closed my eyes, and asked him to remove it from my plate.    I had committed myself to trying this dish, so I picked up my knife and fork and tried to cut into it.   It was like leather, and completely flattened out.   I could not see any meat on the carcase so I tried cutting near the thighs.   Those little claws were just too gross.   I managed to find some meat on the thigh and took a bite.  That was it !    Could not continue;  I Covered the plate with a paper napkin and put it aside.   Finished my drink of fermented Pisco and asked for “la cuenta por favour”.    

   Breaded Cui

There was a beautiful full moon out tonight, and the Plaza de Armas was just beautiful.

Back to the hotel to try to take my mind off that plate of food.   It’s not working !  

Maybe some chocolate covered passion fruit jelly will help.

Signing off  for tonight.