Arequipaaaaaa!

Arequipa is lovely. It's Peru's second city and sits just below El Misti volcano. In the right place in Arequipa you get an amazing view of it. The colonial architecture makes it an excellent city to just wander round, soaking up the atmosphere.

We got here after a six hour bus journey from Puno and as it was quite late we just headed to the main square, where we treated ourselves to a drink at the rooftop bar. It was perfect timing for sunset and there were fireworks going off in the distance, lovely!

The morning after, our first stop was the local market on San Camilo. We spent a good hour just wandering round, taking it all in. It has everything, fruit, veg, the most varieties of potatoes that I've ever seen, fish, meat, animal heads, hardware, ceviches, jugos... You name it, it can be found here. Alongside plenty of things that I couldn't put a name to.

After the market we made a beeline for the Museum, to visit Juanita. Juanita is also known as the Ice Maiden. She's a young girl who was sacrificed by the Incas at the top of a mountain. Soon after, snow came and the resulting ice helped to preserve her body in near perfect condition. A thousand years later and a nearby volcano eruption meant that she rolled from her original burial site further down the mountain, and at the same time part of her face was exposed. Not long after, she was discovered by archaeologists, still in her perfectly preserved condition, except for where her face had been exposed to the sun. At the museum we watched a video of how she was discovered and what archaeologists have been able to glean of her story, from all the artefacts they discovered on the mountain and from history passed down by descendants of the Incas. We also saw many of the artefacts they uncovered, some of which are in incredible condition, before going to see Juanita herself. She's kept in a specially designed set of containers, one of them regulates the humidity and one the temperature, to try and mimic the conditions that preserved her so well. The room is very darkly lit and when we saw her there were actually bits of ice on her face and hands, which meant you couldn't see as much - Ciaran said he had been able to see her more clearly last time he had been to Arequipa. Still, it was incredible to think that this was a real person, who had lived over a thousand years ago, and of all the circumstances that had brought her to where she currently was. We were lucky to catch her here . the indigenous people are campaigning for her to be moved to Colca Canyon, to be closer to where she was originally buried. I'm sure it's the right thing to do because as incredible as she is, she probably should have been left where she was.

After seeing Juanita we dallied with the idea of going to a cevicheria for lunch, but it looked quite pricey relative to the food we had seen in the market, so we headed back there and got stuck into this plato typico of ceviche, rocotto relleno (stuffed peppers) and pastel de papa - a layered potato cake a bit like dauphinois.