Santa Catalina Convent

Im in Arequipa which is quite a large city in the south of Peru. It was founded in the 1500s and, as is often the case, on the site of an old Inca settlement. Its had its share of earthquakes, but since most of the colonial buildings are only a single level, and even the big public edifices are only two, most of the architecture has survived.
And I have to say that I like the particular local flavour of the building style here a lot. In particular, I very much like the use of "Barrel vaulted" ceilings... and the consequent use of many arched windows and doorways... It feels very serene to me :)

I did a walk around of the town centre and its an up market expensive little city (kinda like Antigua in Guatemala, or Zacatecas and Guanajuato in Mexico, or Granada in Nicaragua etc...).
I also visited a large old convent and the pictures in this post are all from there. The place was a completely walled and isolated little village with no external access for almost 400 years... Till it was opened to the public in 1970. At one time there were apparently about 450 nuns in the place but their numbers have dwindled over the recent decades to the point where the remaining nuns have secluded themselves into a small segment of the old grounds.
Its all been repainted and antique furniture placed in the rooms etc and it looks very nice...
But it was the architecture of the place that I really liked.

Lots of courtyards and arches and stairways that go nowhere etc...
I cant really say why, but I liked it a lot. (Maybe I was a nun in a past life! ;) )

You Dont See That Too Often!

Well, actually I see them every day "in the flesh" so to speak; But Ive never personally come across one "up close and personal", and "in the wild".

Like most Westerners, I live a very "civilised" and "sanitised" life, and you just dont run into them. I mean, we just dont leave these things laying around in public you know; So its really no surprise that I havent come across one before.
Where Im from, if somebody does come across one "out in the public" then it gets "looked into" immediately by the authorities, and there is a big fuss in the media etc.

Now, Ive seen them in museums of course, and Ive seen the occasional one in a doctors office, but this was a bit of a surprise to just see it there on the side of the road!

About the only place I think you would be likely to come across these things out in the open and at "random" might possibly be some places in South East Asia or, far more likely, in Africa. Places with very violent recent histories...

If you havnt figured it out yet, Im talking about a Human Skull!

Yep, There were several of them just laying in the sand off the side of the PanAmerican highway, just south of a little town in the desert called Ocona.
I was riding south (as usual) and marvelling at the variety of landscapes that Peru has to offer here on the coast, just using sand and rock... No vegetation at all!

Anyway, I had just come through another of those amazingly narrow (about 2km wide) but fertile and green little valleys where a river runs down to the ocean. And as I rode back out the other side into the completely barren desert landscape of sand dunes, I noticed some white bits in the sand on the side of the highway.
There were quite a few of them, and as I looked a bit closer I could immediately see that they were bones... Nothing too unusual there though... There are plenty of domestic animals about, and things get hit by cars or dumped etc... No big issue.
But as I looked, some of the bones were seeming "a bit interesting" so to speak... It was the larger bones... They seemed to be larger than for dogs and sheep or goats... And the shape was not right for horses or cows...Hmmm
And I keep looking for the next few hundred meters of road side, and there are quite a lot of them, and there are other bones that are shoulder and hip shaped and sized as well as ribs... And they all seem to be of a size and shape that " holds my attention"... But nothing conclusive... No doubt its just my imagination though, so I suppress the idea... :)))

I ride along without slowing, and Im still scanning with my eyes... though Im watching traffic and other stuff as well, so Im not "focused" on the bones.
But, just as Im passing the last patch with the bones and rounding a bend, I get a glimpse of a bone up on a small dune ... only in sight of the road traffic for a moment... and its the size and shape, and with the right "shadowing"...
And my mental "pattern recognition" processes set off the "alarm"!... I ride on a little more and Im thinking...

Did I just see what I think I saw??.. Noo, Cant be... But, the other bones were the right size and shape... Yep, I gotta admit, that did look like it was one...... OK, I gotta go back and check on that!

So I slowed down, stopped, and turned the big bike around on the narrow road to go back and have a look. I got off the bike and took the helmet and gloves off. Then I hiked up the 10m high dune to where the "bone" was, and yes indeed its a skull. I walk around (as respectfully as I can) and have a look at the other bones, and they are all human. There are not many skulls and many are broken and disassembled, but clearly this is/was a cemetery of some sort. I try to figure out whats going on. There are clearly holes and mounds, and they are larger than animals would make, so I conclude that the digging here is relatively recent and is by humans... And thats what is scattering the bones around... They were buried but now they are not.
I look some more and I can see that there is fabric buried here and there, but it doesnt seem to be clothing... Its more like heavy duty Hessian sacking... I look some more, and it seems that the sacking is either covering or wrapping the bodies, but I dont interfere with anything.. It doent seem like the right thing to do.
I look some more, and clearly there is disorganised "grave robbing" going on, but at the site of the first skull I saw, there is also a heavy duty clear plastic bag with some "stuff" in it... This looks like what I would expect from a archaeological or scientific investigation...But why is it just left here in the open...No rain here I guess so why not... But why not fence it off... If its a pre-colombian burial site Id expect it to be well protected and a major investigation site... If its recent then Id expect it to be in a proper cemetery... Did they run the highway through a cemetery and just move the headstones and not the bodies??? - classic cheap but bad taste solution if thats it!
I cant tell how old the bones are... They are certainly not less than 10-20 years old and probably more like 50-100 years but Im just guessing there. They all seem to be "intact" and the skulls that are in pieces seem to be that way because they are old not because of the use of force... There does not seem to be clothing or any modern artefacts... But there are no old artefacts either. There are no wooden coffins that I would expect from modern burials but we are in a really arid desert and there are no trees here for wood, so that could explain the use of the sacking...
I just dont know...

I decided to take a few pictures but I dont touch anything... And then I go back to the bike and ride on...














And while Im posting pictures oif human remains, here are a couple of pictures of mummified bodies from one of the museums Ive been to as well...






But Im still wondering what the origin of this grave site is... I guess Ill ask at the next museum I visit!

Well, I Blew That

I was in a descent hotel for a change and I had a nice bathroom with a good shower etc, and it was time for a good "clean-up", so to speak. So I got my hair clipper out of the panniers and set about shaving off my hair again. I do it about every week or so to keep my hair as short as possible. Believe me, its much nicer without hair when you spend all your days wearing a motorbike helmet and riding in tropical and desert conditions.
Ive become pretty good at doing a good job on my own head just by feel these days, and I was happily trimming away when there was a quite a loud "Pop!" from the trimmer; and it stopped humming and emitted a sizeable puff of acrid smoke!... I wasnt expecting that!

Its a good quality unit, so it was a bit of a surprise... But, it shouldnt have been!
Back when I was doing some basic research on the trip, I recall reading (now that I have had the "Pop" experience that is!) that the voltage of domestic electricity changes from 110V to 220V somewhere about half way down South America.
But I just didnt think to check it at all before I plugged the trimmer in... The sockets are exactly the same here as they were in Ecuador... But the voltage definitely isnt!!

OK, so now I have a half a scalp of close cropped stubble and the other half of short hair... Hmmm.
So, I put on a wooly hat and go for a walk to find a place to get a hair cut... Not too hard and I explain my strange hair to the person at the hair place and we smile and then I get the rest of my hair trimmed off :))

All good, but now my trimmer doesnt work any more.
Not sure if I should just throw it out or get the winding redone? - Itll be very cheap to get fixed here; But even when fixed, it still wont help with 220V electricity... So I either pay for weekly cuts now or I buy another 220V trimmer and carry them both... Or, I could get my broken one rebuilt to work on 220V???. Hmmm ... Or I could just grow my hair!... Nahhh

Oh well, just another of those little travel related hassles :)

Picking Up Chicks!

One other little encounter for the day.

I finally managed to attract the attention of a girl with my big motorbike!


Around mid afternoon, I rounded a corner up in the high country of the range closer too the coast, and there were a couple of the Peruvian women out in the tussock fields walking toward the road. They were in the full traditional dress with their colourful shawls being used as backpacks with a load of "stuff", and their felt hats, long braided black hair and who knows how many layers of colourful skirts and cardigans on...
...And they waved me down!... Which I was not expecting but I wasnt going too fast and I didnt mind coming to a full stop to find out what was up...

They came over to the road and I could see that one was quite a bit older than the other (Id guess one at 50ish and the other at 30ish) and they started talking but it was not clear what they were saying (too much wind - always the wind! - and accent and my helmet on etc.) but the tone was a bit sad and sorry so to speak...
I took off my helmet and slowed things down and figured out that they were mother and daughter and that the mother had some kind of abdominal trouble... And they were going to the hospital in the next town... And could I help and give them a ride.

Well, the town was only 10Km away, and I was happy enough to help, but there was just no way I could get them both on the bike with me and their "luggage"... They readily agreed and decided that mother should go with me and daughter would catch up with a different ride...

So, I flipped out the rear passenger pegs and braced my legs wide so the bike wouldnt topple over on anyone!... And mother set about clambering up... waaaay up... onto the back seat. It was quite funny. There was grunting and groaning and help from daughter pushing, and I was used as a general purpose "any hold will do" clambering aid.... And eventually mother was in position :)))





I asked daughter to take a picture which she did (yep, she reaaaallly gave that button a good press :)) ) and when I showed them both the pictures on the screen of the little camera, there were giggles and huge smiles...
It was a sight to see I can tell you... They must have had at most, only half a full set of teeth between them!
Ahh but I guess thats how life is here.

So, I gave daughter a couple of oranges to eat while she waited for another vehicle to get a ride, and mother and I set off slowly toward the town.
Im guessing that it was a bit hair raising for mother though, because she was holding on to the back of my jacket with very firm grip (strong little workers hands!) and I was heaved and pushed around whenever she turned to look a different way or whenever we went around a bend and the bike had to bank over. I went as slowly and carefully as I could to try not to scare her.

And we made it OK to the next town. Mother gave me an extra tug and a word or two when she wanted to stop. She would not let me take her all the way to the hospital even when I tried to insist. She knew where she wanted to go and where she wanted to get off... So, I let it be.
Again I was "man handled" as she clambered down off the big bike (she was only 130cm tall or so). There was a heartfelt thank you from her... And then we went our separate ways...


And I rode my stead off into the sunset... Seeking other damsels in distress for whom I may be able to render assistance! :)))

Camelids!

So, I rode back to the coast, the way I came.
Its over two different mountain ranges, and both of them are over 4500m in altitude.
It took all day the first time, and it took all day on the way back too.

The countryside changes constantly and Im not too bored, cos things look different when you go through them the other way around (like reviewing your life in reverse order! :) )

There are a bunch of general photos below, but the main interesting things to me were, the variety of "Camelids" I got to see !
There were lots of them :))

I saw many many heards of Llamas...







And their smaller, cuter, and woolier cousins the Alpacas...











But I also got to see lots and lots of Vicunas which are the wild relative of the Alpacas (small and delicate and cute and wooly, but drab tan in colour rather than the black/white/brown combinations of the domesticated animals)...







And one small heard of Guanacos which are the wild relative of the Llamas (similar build but again,in the drab tan colour)...





So, in the one ride I got to see all of the Camelids in South America... If I want to see more then Ill have to go to Asia to see Bactrian and Dromedary camels :)

Here are a few more pictures of the ride over the mountains today.