Virtual Vacation - Arequipa, Peru

 

The desert is like a campfire in its ability to empty your mind. Gazing out the windows of the bus, the view constantly changing as we leaned and lurched through curve after unforgiving curve, climbing up into the mountains of southern Peru, I had only two thoughts in my head. One, who on this bus was going to throw up first, and two, was that person sitting directly behind me?

As the land plateaued and the road straightened another question came to mind, one whose answer eluded me for years.

What made the town of Arequipa back there so cool?

My new wife and I had only been in country a few days. This was our first time in South America, and every moment came at us like a dreamy assault on the senses. After two disorienting days in Lima and an oddly unexciting plane ride over the mysterious Nazca lines we hopped a bus and fell off in the most laid-back million-person town I'd ever seen.

Without a lick of Spanish and barely a half-lick of a map we found our guest house. We dropped our bags, tested out the bed, and headed out to explore.

Arequipa has a lively, funky town square called the Plaza de Armas. This check in the positive column gets an asterisk though because every village, town and city in the Spanish-speaking world has a Plaza de Armas, even Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Arequipa also has its share of markets, another reason to like the place since visiting the local markets is one of the first things I do wherever I happen to travel. Of note is my anticipation in visiting them, which is both increased and mitigated by the fact that there are markets pretty much wherever I go. At least there were before fatherhood killed my travel mojo.

Having to pull out my pocket-sized English-Spanish dictionary at every turn was fun too. In one market in Arequipa I learned the Spanish words for grapes, country, apples, and cow testicles. Forgetting all of it by the time I counted my change made it clear that the verbal circus would last the entire trip.

I think I liked Arequipa for the same reasons I like Matsumoto, my adopted Japanese hometown. It's moderately-sized, it's surrounded by mountains, and it's got this understated, elevated vibe. I can't explain it. I only know I felt it. I wish I'd had a little more time to soak it up.

If I ever go back, I'll revisit the Plaza, walk down more random streets, wander more of the markets and have more of the ceviche my wife insisted we try every day. But before any of that I'll probably head for the mountains north and west of town.

My wife, if she's with me, will probably just head for the nearest market. She's not much for ancient sites of ritual human sacrifice.

        

Arequipa sits high in the southern Peruvian desert, less than a hundred kilometers from the coast as the condor flies but a full 2,300 meters - almost a mile and a half - above sea level. Second only to Lima in population, Arequipa as a city was founded in 1540 by the conquering Spaniards though the land had been settled long before then, by nomadic fishers and hunters until agriculture and the domestication of the llama changed a few things.

There are a couple of stories regarding the origin of the name Arequipa. One tells of Europeans exploring the territory; when they came to this enchanting place they asked the local chief what it was called by pointing to the ground and speaking Spanish really loud. The chief, thinking they were asking permission to stay there for the night, said (over the ringing in his ears) Ari qhipay, meaning "Sure fellas, hang out a bit."

This story doesn’t really hold water. European explorers historically didn’t ask for things so much as slaughter whoever was around and take their stuff.

A more likely story (in my uneducated estimation) involves a group of subjects of the ruler of the Kingdom of Cuzco. In the course of traveling through the area on an expedition or a mission or maybe a scavenger hunt they sent a message to the Incan king, asking if they could stay there in these beautiful highlands they'd found. "Ari qhipay!" he wrote back, seemingly having totally forgotten about the scavenger hunt.

The early inhabitants of the Arequipa area were settled in a loose network of villages sprinkled about the land. Then 1540 brought the Spaniards, led by a guy named Carbajal who rearranged their seats and told them all to play nice or he would have to slaughter them. To seal the deal, Carbajal told them they were now living in a place called Villa de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora del Valle Hermoso de Arequipa – though by the time he finally finished saying so everyone had already gotten back to their llamas and their potato fields and no one heard him.

Arequipa lies in a sort of plateau within the Andes mountains. To the south and west, sub-ranges of the Andes separate the city from the lower lands rolling out to the Pacific. To the north and east is where things really get interesting - and is where I'd tell my wife I'd be if she needed anything.

North of Arequipa, clearly visible beyond the cactus growing on the roof of our guest house, was the volcanic Chachani mountain range. Topping out at 6,067 meters - a few big boulders shy of 20,000 feet - Chachani consists of a string of volcanic domes, volcanic cones, and stratovolcanoes stretching out over more than ten miles. Active during the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods – basically a long time ago - Chachani hasn't done much of anything in an estimated 56,000 years.

Interesting (in a mildly terrifying way) is the fact that Chachani is not considered extinct but rather dormant, in other words pretty passed out but not entirely dead. Better still, the people who make these estimations say that this estimated length of dormancy could be off by as much as 31,000 years. Wish they’d told us that when we were there. If those volcano people can be off by that much I'm not putting too much stock in that dormant idea.

I'm not telling the wife any of this in case I do make it back to Arequipa.

In a wildly intriguing twist, the Andean Aymara language the name Chachani means brave, which is what I will call myself if I ever go hike these mountains. My wife, on the other hand, will call me Estupido.

If Chachani is deep asleep, El Misti is up and about with a few cups of coffee. Rising rather Mt. Fuji-like ten miles northeast of town, this stratovolcano last erupted in 1985, less than two hundred years after the previous big belch. Slightly shorter than Chachani at 5822 meters, (19,101feet, rounded to the nearest foot), Misti boasts an unusual three concentric craters in its rumbling, uneasy mouth - which evidently did nothing to deter the Incas of old.

In 1998, just three years after that most recent eruption, artifacts and mummies were discovered near Misti's innermost crater. They were found during an archaeological dig that lasted just one month, making it, unofficially, the fastest successful dig on record as the guys with the toothbrushes wanted to just find something and get the hell out of there before the mountain erupted again.

Picchu Picchu (no relation) is an arc-shaped, ten-kilometer long volcanic ridge rising 5,664 meters (18,583feet) above the ocean. Sitting quietly twenty kilometers east of Arequipa, Picchu Picchu was active 6.7 million years ago. Now the mountain lies extinct though a major phreatic blast a million years ago next month resulted in a massive volcanic landslide and a spike in sales among shovel makers. Since then the mountain has only passively sat through the reforming effects of glaciation.

This mountain range was considered sacred by the people who inhabited this region from around 600-1100 AD. Evidence of this lies with the discovery of several mummies and the leftovers of capacochas, rituals of human sacrifice that usually involved children. The name Picchu Picchu likely comes from the Quechua word pikchu, meaning pyramid. There are a handful of scholars, however, who contend that the name is a derivative of the Japanese pikachu.

The lower-lying mountains to the southwest round out the Andean landscape surrounding Arequipa. Whether these hills have any history, any hiking trails or even any names I do not know. And I will likely never find out, even if I do make it back to this oasis in the high Peruvian desert.

My boots, I am sure, will be pointed north and east.

Once they've had their fill of extinct and dormant and maybe active volcanos I'll bring them back to town, in hopes that my wife, along with the vibe I discovered back in 2005, is still there waiting for me.