Monasterio de Santa Catalina: A city within a city.

For our last Saturday here in Arequipa we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Convent. The convent is located in the historic center of Arequipa and it is considered the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. Constructed from Sillar, a white volcanic stone quarried locally, the convent was founded in 1579, and is truly a city within a city. The nuns constructed private cells within the convent where they could lead isolated lives, protected by high walls sheltering them from the surrounding city.

Most museums, or tourist sites here in Peru encourage you to have a guide, normally we prefer to do it without one, but this structure was so large, and with so much history, that I am glad we opted to have a guide show us the place.

One of the many alleys within the Convent. Each street within the convent is named after a Spanish city, I think this one might have been Malaga.

According to Wikipedia: The foundress of the monastery was a rich widow, Maria de Guzman. The tradition of the time indicated that the second son or daughter of a family would enter a life of service in the Church (can you imagine Terran as a priest!?), and the monastery accepted only women from upper class Spanish families. Each family paid a dowry at their daughter's admission to the monastery. The dowry was 2,400 silver coins, equivalent to about $150,000 (U.S.) today (Sorry Maija, we can't afford to send you there). The nuns were also required to bring 25 listed items, including a statue, a painting, a lamp and clothes. The wealthiest nuns may have brought fine English china and silk curtains and rugs. Although it was possible for poorer nuns to enter the convent without paying a dowry, it can be seen from the cells that most of the nuns were very wealthy.

Again, most of the post, as with most posts, will be pictures. The whole place looked like what I imagined rural Spain would look like. 

This is how the nuns communicated with the outside world. This room would not be lit, so the people from the outside could not see the faces of the nuns. Family members, and friends could give the nuns packages through a lazy susan style window.

The orange tree cloister. I love the colors of the convent, so bold!

Flowers, and more flowers! Peru is so beautifully colorful.

More details of art work.

The Beds, as seen below, were always placed under an arch due to the frequency of seismic movement here in Peru. In fact during our stay in Peru we slept through a couple of minor earthquakes, Arequipa had one on Sunday, it was only around 4 in the Richter scale. Our guide told us Arequipa experiences tremors on a daily basis.

A stove in one of the many houses of the nuns

A beautiful corner ;)

Cordoba street, so pretty! Is it too late to become a nun?

Toledo street has some of the oldest buildings in the convent.

Again according to my best friend Wikipedia: At its height, the monastery housed approximately 450 people (about a third of them nuns and the rest servants) in a cloistered community. In the 1960s, it was struck twice by earthquakes, severely damaging the structures, and forcing the nuns to build new accommodation next door. Lucky for them the place is HUGE!

Our family in Zocodober square. There were water lilies in the fountain....in case you are wondering, Wyatt does have grayish, blue hair, Peru is encouraging him to be even more free with his hair choices!

At the top of the dome chapel

A beautiful altar piece for the chapel

Maija wants a wedding dress that looks like this one.....I don't know what to think about that?!?! 

This little owl was drawing some attention from tourist, he was right by a nest of a very concerned mama bird. 

Peeking picture!

With my favorite guy in Toledo Street

I would love to sit here with a good book!

Old fashion laundry facilities.

More flowers. The convent had a beautiful gardens, I don't know if we got a picture, but there was a huge avocado tree in the garden

She is almost as tall as me, but not yet as of Saturday!

My poor family might be a little sick of so many churches, and museums....oh well! After visiting this place I mentioned we should go to the Vatican some day...even though this convent was beautiful, they all agreed they have had enough of old churches...WHAT??!