One of our first days in Arequipa, we saw the Santa Catalina convent. We learned a lot. We learned about how the second children of a family had to become nuns or priests. We learned about how, for the first four years, the nuns, sent to the convent around age 13, saw no one but their teachers. We learned about how they lived and much more. We were informed about an important nun named Ana de los Angeles. She’d been sent to the convent for education at age 3, but permanently pulled out 10 years later, to be forcibly married to a man who was much older than she was. She ended up running away and permanently joining the convent. Her parents refused to give her the donation she needed, but her brother helped. She died at age 80. Centuries later, in the 1900s, a woman very sick with cancer mixed tiny portion of the ash of Ana de los Angeles with her medicine. In only a few days, she was completely cured.
After seeing the convent, we head a nice lunch overlooking a plaza with music in the background. Later, I fed the birds. So many! So aggressive! It seemed as if a literal sea of pigeons was swarming me. It was amazing.
The next day, we had a delicious lunch with the family we were staying with. I had cuy. It came with the claws, bones, head and all. It was actually kinda disgusting, but it was good. I liked it!
Also, we saw bulls fighting. This was not the Spanish style, where the man with the cape kills the bull with a spear. Instead, in this Peruvian style, bulls head butted each other, and when one was too hurt to continue and ran, the other won. During the last fight we saw, one bull pushed another into the barrier. There was an explosion of people as everyone rushed to avoid the danger. It was a little scary. Eventually, the bull with the bloodiest wounds, the one obviously losing, chased away the other and won the match. Woo!
We also stayed with a wonderful family in a beautiful house with lots of space. They were family of a friend of ours. Their names were Carmen Sr., Pepé Sr, and Carmen Jr. Pepé Jr, my parents’ friend, got in touch with us, and he wanted us to stay with his family.They were so nice and so welcoming! Hospitable, too!
Round the World Kid 