Arequipa

When we got to Arequipa some of the roads in the city centre were close due to the parade for "los senor de los milagros".
This is an historical parade to celebrate the beginning of spring.
The violet color of the clothing is matching the color of the flowers in bloom all around town.

This beautiful town has been destroyed several times by eruptions and earthquakes.
Last time was only 10 years ago. Certainly its location is not ideal: Arequipa means town behind the volcanoes....there are 8 of them in the proximity
The telluric activity is huge: There are around 10/15 small movements every day. We are told that this is actually good news. It is only when the movements reduce that you need to worry because a big one is about to come.
I am pleased to confirm that we left unscattered.
On day one we simply wandered around town with no specific goal.
At sunset we noticed some terraces above the galleria in the main square and thought that taking a picture of the square from the roofs would be cool.
We therefore spoke to the owner of one of the restaurants in the square if we could climb on top of his roof......Not only he agreed but gave us an interesting lecture of the town's history.

Here's a picture from the roof with the cathedral and to volcano misty in the background.

And this is the main square by night.

We spent the following day by visiting the main attraction of Arequipa: The Santa Catalina Monastery.
The monastery was originally built entirely in white stones in the 16th century by the will of lady Guzman, a huge devote of Santa Catilina.
After the earthquake of 1971 most of the walls were painted in bright colonial colors.
But let's allow the images to do most of the talking:

The courtyard of silence: here the future nuns would spend 1 to 4 years in silence, thinking whether they should become a nun or not......

The courtyard of the orange tree painted in bright blue color.

The monastery is so big that there are real roads named after spanish towns.

Red is one of the prevalent colors.....

and a bit of yellow......

You might think that life wasn't too bad in this monastery.
Well, until the 19th century the nuns were even allowed to bring up to 4 servants inside.
But then the Pope sent one of his emissaries to tighten up things and we guess that was the end of parties in the pool.....