Stacey’s 30th Birthday Extravaganza

Perhaps the most important tourist attraction within the city of Arequipa itself is the very interesting Santa Catalina Monastery which covers several city blocks surrounded by a high wall.  The Monasterio de Santa Catalina is a cloistered convent located in the center of Arequipa. It was built in 1580 and was enlarged in the 17th century. The over 20,000-square-meter monastery is predominantly of the Mudejar style, and is characterised by the vividly painted walls. There are approximately 20 nuns (aged 18 to 90) currently living in the northern corner of the complex; the rest of the monastery is open to the public.

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 that included luxurious English carpets, silk curtains, porcelain plates, damask tablecloths, silver cutlery, and lace sheets.  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.

In 1871 Sister Josefa Cadena, a strict Dominican nun, was sent by Pope Pius IX to reform the monastery. She sent the rich dowries back to Europe, and freed all the servants and slaves, giving them the choice of remaining as nuns or leaving. In addition to the stories of outrageous wealth, there are tales of nuns becoming pregnant, and amazingly of the skeleton of a baby being discovered encased in a wall. This, in fact, did not happen in Santa Catalina, and there are rumours of the same story in the nearby Santa Rosa convent, as well.

The convent once housed approximately 450 people (about a third of them nuns and the rest servants) in a cloistered community. It was opened to the public in 1970, when the nuns opened their doors to tourism to pay for the installation of electricity and running water, as required by law.  The interior of the convent includes several streets and covered walkways, open-air plazas, living quarters with kitchens and laundry areas as well as a cemetery, church and confessionals.  Since the convent is cloistered the women had almost no contact with the outside world and when needing to receive or exchange goods would do so via these revolving shelves to the outside and behind the screens below:

Also included is a picture of a typical cell for a nun living in Santa Catalina:

And a picture of a small portion of the communal kitchen area complete with traditional cooking tools.

The kitchen

This is the former laundry area…a series of large earthenware tubs with running water from the city of Arequipa.  The water is still running though the tubs have not been used in many years.

Since today is my last day at the orphanage I thought I’d give a little update on what’s been going on there:

1. We got a newborn of 5 days old last week putting our infant count at a total of 3 and getting me permanently assigned to the baby room since they seem to think I can handle 2 or 3 at a time. 
2. One of the other volunteers, Kathy from Canada, collected donations from her family and friends at home and was able to purchase a new stove/oven for the orphanage as the before they were cooking for 20 people a day on 4 gas burners of questionable safety standards.  In addition, they previously did not have an oven and were renting oven space from a neighbor for 5 soles (US$1.60) an hour.
3. Emerson (baby of 4 months old) is getting adopted!  We don’t know by who…Peruvians or foreigners but he should be getting new parents in the next couple of months.  Congrats to Emerson and to Peru for not letting him languish in an orphanage until it’s too late.

And with that…we here at the Extravaganza blog are signing off from Peru.  It’s been a good 7 weeks or so but now we are off to bigger and better places..or rather longer and skinnier places…the oddly shaped country of Chile followed closely by Uruguay and Argentina where the Extravaganza will finally wrap up.  Think of me in the next couple of days as I’m enduring a 30 hour bus ride to Santiago.  Until then…   

View of Colca Canyon from the rim

Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. It is located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Arequipa and is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. However, the canyon’s walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon. The Cotahuasi Canyon to the northwest (also in Peru) is a deeper canyon at 11,488 ft (3,501 m). Since they are such major features of the landscape, the Colca and Cotahuasi canyons are both easily recognizable in even low-resolution satellite photos of the region. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with towns founded in Spanish Colonial times and formerly inhabited by the Collaguas and the Cabanas. The local people still maintain ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces.

The oasis at the bottom of the canyon

One of the major attractions in and around Arequipa, the Colca Canyon is must-see for anyone in the area.  There are lots of different tours available including standard bus-in/bus-out and various lengths of trekking tours.  Fortunately for me, the group that I’ve been volunteering with is partially run by a local tour guide who is well-known in the canyon and who runs very interesting trekking/cultural tours to the villages in Colca.  Jonathan, one of the other volunteers was planning to do a four day trek with his father and Luis into Colca and fortunately they let me tag along. 

As we just learned above, Colca is the second deepest canyon in the world…though I suspect not quite so awe-inspiring as the Grand Canyon as the walls of the canyon are not so vertical (not sure on this as I’ve not yet been to the Grand Canyon).  The GC is about a mile at its deepest point while Colca is 3000 meters (9,842 feet).  Another interesting phenomenon of Colca Canyon in the prolific number of Andean condors cruising around.  Unfortunately we were not visiting during the best season for viewing condors but we did see a few in flight. 

So back to the trip…on Day 1 we took a 5 hour bus ride into the valley of the Canyon and commenced with walking down to the floor of the canyon from the rim which took about 3 hours.  The walk was not strenuous though I was having flashbacks to all of those stairs on the last day of the Inka Trail.  At the very bottom of the canyon some rather enterprising Peruvians have developed an oasis complete with natural swimming pools and bungalows for sleeping.  We rested up for a bit at the oasis then prepared for another hour and a half hike up to the village where we’d be spending the next two nights…the village of Malata.

As I mentioned, Luis is well-known among the Canyon crowd as he is working to develop more eco-friendly and culture-friendly tours that allow the local villagers to earn money from tourism without being exploited…hopefully allowing them to keep their traditional agrarian ways.  One family in the village of Malata has developed a very basic-style hostal where part of the experience is learning about the traditional ways of the villagers…like gathering bugs to make dye for wool and working in the fields using the ancient tools of the Incas.  It was in this family…Doris and Modesto…that we got to experience life as Incan villagers.

Hostal Malata

On Day 2 we were up early in the morning headed for the cactus fields where we were to collect the cochineal insects which are dried out, ground into a powder and added to crushed geranium leaves to make a bright red dye for woolen goods made by the village ladies.  We weren’t able to collect a huge amount as the recent rains had washed away many of the bugs, but I’ve included several pictures here of the process…from the cactus, to the scrapings, to the final powder product.

Spoon and pan used for harvesting cochineal

Jonathan squishing a bug to see the red color

   

Powder from dried, crushed cochineal

In the afternoon of Day 2, we returned to the house to help Doris make the dye (shown here below)…of course the dye process is women’s work so that’s what I did.  Jonathan, Luis and Jonathan’s dad were busy scraping the wool from the hide so that I could spin it into yarn.  Well, that was the theory at least.  My yarn-spinnning did not go so well…it’s a bit harder than you think and my yarn looked more like rope with tufts of fur sticking out of it.  It seems I’m not cut out for a career in textiles.

Crushing the geraniums for the dye…

    

Using broken glass to remove the wool

   

The final product

On Day 3 we got up early and prepared to head out to the fields with Modesto.  The preparations were extensive as it is customary before tilling and planting a field to make an offering (or payment as they call it) to the gods.  Here is Modesto putting together the offering which includes seeds of various grains, tiny slivers of gold and silver foil, alcohol of some variety and a few other items that are escaping me at the moment:

Preparing the offering

After doing the ritual blessing at the house, we carry the tools:

to the field and set the bundle with the offering on fire in the corner of the field.  We also passed around an animal horn full of a local spirit before commencing with our field work.  First off…clearing the field of weeds by hand.  As a woman, I was not obliged to work on this task but I pitched in anyway.  After the weeds were pulled, it was time to plant the wheat (which is apparently a woman’s task) and I set about tossing the grain over the field.  After I completed this task, the men were obliged to use their ancient tools to turn the dirt over onto the newly sown seeds.   I followed along after them with my spade breaking up the clumps and flattening out the soil.  Some pictures of this process are below.

The men…preparing the offering at the field

   

Setting the offering on fire

  

Women’s work…

  

Expedition Colca

  

 

After the work in the fields we were treated to the local delicacy…cuy (pronounced cooey)…or guinea pig…freshly slaughtered that morning and prepared by Doris.  I’ve had cuy a few times and while it’s OK I find it something like ribs…a hell of a lot of work for not so much meat.  Because of the pending rain we set out for the canyon floor right after lunch where we were met by mules that would be taking us up the same path from two days ago to the rim of the canyon.  Now those of you who were with me back in Ecuador may recall the debacle that was the horse-back riding incident.  Needless to say, I was not especially thrilled to hear I would again be riding on the back of some renegade four-legged animal.  We made it to the top though and I have the following to say about riding mules:  Riding mules is better than riding horses…but they both still suck.

We spent our last night in a hostal in Cabanaconde where I had my first hot shower in about 3 weeks followed by several glasses of wine.  Heaven, in my world.  Early the next morning we were off to the Cruz del Condor in hopes of spotting more of the famed birds…alas, we had no luck so opted for a post-lunch dip in the hot springs at Chivay (highly recommended) before our return to Arequipa.  All-in-all a good trip…and a great alternative to the standard trips to Colca Canyon. 

Original Inca terraces in Colca Valley

View of Lake Titicaca and other island from Taquile

The Uros Islands, Lake Titicaca, Peru

Vamos a la playa! 

Volcano Chachani at sunset

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