Here’s a trip down memory lane for us… a few photos from our visit to the Monastery of Santa Catalina in Arequipa. The monastery is a neighborhood contained within one city block, an amazing world of color, light, and shadow. Arequipa itself is a beautiful city, built out of sillar white stone bricks, definitely one of out favorite places in Peru. Excellent food and fun bars surround the city center and the horizon is punctuated by snow-capped volcanoes. We saw the mummified body of an Inca girl, sacrificed atop one of those peaks. The Inca thought that these sacrifices might appease the gods that controlled the volcanoes and earthquakes. The Inca Empire ended, the Spanish came and went, but eruptions and earthquakes continue to shake the region. Arequipa was our last stop in Peru, a tough place to leave.
(Megan decided to impersonate one of the nuns that used to live in these quarters. Since the 2nd child of wealthy families went into religious life back in the 16th and 17th century, they used to keep up their same luxurious lifestyles and social life, just behind the monastery walls.)
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