Arequipa
Arequipa is built almost entirely from sillar, a white volcanic tuff quarried from the mountains above it, which is soft enough to carve and gives the colonial centre a uniform brightness. Santa Catalina, a walled convent founded in 1579, functioned as a town of streets and squares for four centuries and opened to the public only in 1970.
Why go
A city built in white volcanic stone — sillar, quarried from the volcanoes above it. Santa Catalina — a walled convent that functioned as a small city for four centuries. Three volcanoes on the skyline — Misti, Chachani and Pichu Pichu, with Misti at 5,822 metres. Colca Canyon — twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, with condors, three hours north.
The character
Arequipa is built almost entirely from sillar, a white volcanic tuff quarried locally, which gives the colonial centre a uniform brightness and a nickname — the White City. The material also explains the architecture: sillar is light and easy to carve but poor in tension, so the buildings have thick walls, low vaults and deep window reveals, and the churches are decorated with a distinctive mestizo Baroque of flat carved ornament.
Santa Catalina is the city's extraordinary thing. Founded in 1579 as a convent for the daughters of wealthy families, it operated as a walled town of streets, squares and private cells with servants until reforms in 1871 — twenty thousand square metres, painted in ochre and cobalt, opened to the public only in 1970. Arequipeños have a long-standing sense of separateness from Lima, occasionally expressed as talk of a passport, and the food is regarded within Peru as the country's best, served in picanterías that specialise by day of the week.
Places of character
Santa Catalina Monastery — allow two hours; the painted streets are unlike anything else in the Americas. Plaza de Armas — sillar arcades on three sides and the cathedral on the fourth, with Misti behind it. Museo Santuarios Andinos — Juanita, the Inca girl sacrificed on Ampato and preserved by ice. A picantería — Sol de Mayo or La Nueva Palomino; rocoto relleno, chupe de camarones, adobo on Sundays. Yanahuara — a viewpoint district with sillar arches framing the volcano. Colca Canyon — three hours north; condors at Cruz del Cóndor in the early morning.
The way to do it
Give Santa Catalina a proper two hours rather than an hour. Eat in picanterías and ask what the day's dish is — the system is real. Do Colca as an overnight ahead of a day trip, because the drive is long and the condors fly early. And acclimatise; Arequipa is at 2,335 metres and Colca goes over 4,900.
One perfect day
Santa Catalina at opening, walking painted lanes between cells with nobody in them for the first hour. Coffee in the plaza under the arcades with Misti above the cathedral. Late morning at the Museo Santuarios Andinos for Juanita, which takes forty minutes and stays with you. Lunch at a picantería: rocoto relleno and a chicha. Afternoon in Yanahuara for the arches and the volcano, then the San Camilo market. Sunset from a terrace with the three volcanoes going pink. Dinner late, and the plaza lit and full of families.
Grand hotels
Casa Andina Private Collection — an eighteenth-century sillar mansion, the former mint. Cirqa — a sixteenth-century convent building with eleven rooms, austere and superb.
When to go
Best expression: May to September, the dry season, with clear volcano views. Consider: April, at the end of the rains, when the countryside is green. Avoid if possible: January to March, the wet months, when Colca roads can be difficult.
The frame
Ideal stay 3 nights, plus Colca · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival by air from Lima, ninety minutes · Airport AQP, 8 km · Walkability the centre entirely · Best without a car yes