Arequipa Travel Guide

The Monastery of Santa Catalina, founded in 1579 in Arequipa, is a walled convent-city of about 20,000 m² where red and blue walls and cobbled lanes intertwine like a small town hidden in the city. Once a secluded nuns' enclave, it opened partially in 1970 and is now among Peru's most captivating colonial complexes.

The Yanahuara Viewpoint, in the Yanahuara district northwest of Arequipa's centre, is the classic perch over Peru's White City. A row of 17th-century arches carved from pale volcanic stone frames the perfect cone of El Misti, the snow-capped Chachani and the long ridge of Pichu Pichu in a single composition. Coloured tiles on the arches honour Arequipa's famous figures, while cobbled streets and whitewashed sillar mansions fill the surrounding quarter, with stalls selling local cheeses and sweets at the lanes' corners. At dusk the light turns soft and the volcanoes glow orange — a golden hour photographers rarely skip.

El Misti rises to about 5,822 m as a symmetric stratovolcano looming over Arequipa — visible from almost every angle of the old town. The city's symbol is also a popular two-day trek; the summit overlooks the whole white city and a vast volcanic wilderness.

Colca Canyon lies in Peru's Arequipa region and ranks among the deepest canyons on earth, its two rims dropping more than a kilometer toward the river. Local communities have terraced the steep slopes for centuries, and the snow-capped Andes loom above traditional villages. At the Cruz del Condor viewpoint, giant Andean condors ride the morning thermals in spectacular circles — one of the finest places in the world to watch these birds. Mist over the hamlets, rising steam from hot springs and terraced fields make the canyon a serene highland tableau and a paradise for hikers and photographers.

The Museo Santuarios Andinos in Arequipa is a dedicated institution for high-Andes ritual remains, centered on Inca mummies and offerings excavated from volcanoes such as Ampato. Sharing the collection that includes Juanita the Ice Maiden, it systematically presents the Inca reverence for mountains and the Capacocha sacrifice.

The Monasterio de la Recoleta sits in the Selva Alegre district of northern Arequipa, Peru, about a ten-minute walk across the Grau Bridge. Founded in 1648 by the Discalced Franciscans, it is one of the city's most underrated cultural sites. Built of white volcanic sillar stone, its courtyards and arcaded cloisters are exceptionally peaceful beneath the Andes. Its greatest treasure is the library: about 20,000 volumes, several thousand of them 16th- and 17th-century incunabula, some unique in South America, still shelved in the original three-hundred-year-old cedar presses. The most celebrated item is the so-called 'Book of the Million' - a 16th-century edition of Marco Polo's travels with handwritten marginal notes whose author has never been identified, drawing book-history scholars from Europe. The monastery also holds colonial religious art together with pre-Columbian artefacts and mummies collected by Franciscan friars on their missions in the Amazon and the Andes between the 17th and 19th centuries - a collection with no equivalent in any public museum in Arequipa. Admission is about S/15, tours are led by friars or long-serving lay guides, and following a guide is strongly recommended: without them a visit loses most of its meaning.