We arrived in Arequipa after a 10 hour Cruz del Sur bus journey from Nazca. Both exhausted, it was a surprise and a delight to find we appeared to be staying in one of the nicest hostels of the entire trip. This was confirmed the next morning at breakfast, when we had a choice of four different cereals, three different yoghurts, delicious bread, cheese and ham. I am not ashamed to admit I was close to tears: amazing the things you miss when travelling, but cereal is pretty much at the top of my food list. I made sure I had 2 bowls every morning to satisfy my cravings.

Arequipa is a beautiful city, famous for its 'sillar' buildings – a blindingly white volcanic rock – and is a World Heritage Site by dint of this fact alone. We started our exploration in the Plaza de Armas, which seems to serve as a meeting and hanging out point for the local population – it was buzzing early on a Friday morning, and by the afternoon you could barely move for people. The square is dominated by the cathedral, which was decimated by an earthquake in the 19th century and has since been completely rebuilt in neo-classical style. It's pretty stunning, although the views from the rooftop were even more impressive. Arequipa is surrounded by 3 volcanos – El Misti (5822m), Chachani (6075m) and Pichu Pichu (5571m) and the 360 degree vista was pretty spectacular.

Our next stop was the Museo Santury (sic), home to a 500 year old mummy called Juanita, found by an American near the top of Mount Ampato (6288m) in the mid-1990s. Juanita was a 15 year old girl offered as a sacrifice to the gods by the Incas, which apparently was a fairly common ritual towards the end of the empire's reign (prior to that, only animals and other precious artifacts were made as offerings – things were clearly getting pretty desperate at that point!). It sounds pretty brutal – she was walked 580km from Cuzco to the mountain, fed copious amounts of alcohol and then killed by a blow to the head, before being left on the mountainside – but in fact being selected as a sacrifice was a very great honour, and rich Inca families petitioned for their children to be chosen. As a result of the icy conditions Juanita was left in, her body has been almost perfectly preserved, including her hair and skin, although she has to be kept in what is essentially in a freezer to avoid further decomposition. Seeing her tiny body (she was about 4 foot 10) was a pretty creepy sight, and reminded me just how little we know about the Inca civilisation and their traditions.

We spent the afternoon at the Monasterio Santa Catalina, a Dominican nunnery founded in 1579 which was designed to be a 'city within a city.' We were a little disappointed that the stories of saucy nuns that lured us in were completely unfounded, but were nevertheless blown away by the place. It was vast, with 5 'streets,' a cemetery, a laundry and lovely gardens. In its heyday, there were some 175 nuns in residence, and it is still in operation today, albeit on a much smaller scale – there are about 40 nuns living on site, ranging in age from 18 to 90! Traditionally the second daughters from rich Spanish conquistador families were sent to the nunnery at the age of 12, where they would remain until they died – parents believed that they would be more likely to go to heaven if they had a religious daughter! The girls were kept in solitary confinement for four years, speaking only to the nuns who taught them to read and write, before they were allowed to enter the convent proper.

But it wasn't all bad. The families usually paid for the daughters to have enormous rooms filled with the finest furniture and china, and each nun could have up to 5 maids who prepared their meals (each nun had an individual kitchen) and kept house for them. Wandering through the gorgeous complex, all brightly painted red and blue walls and geraniums everywhere, it was fascinating to see the degree of individuality between the different rooms – and also the discrepancy between the financial circumstances of different nuns, visible from whether the doors to their rooms were carved or plain. Local bishops tried several times to make the nuns live a more ascetic life, but when they finally succeeded, forcing the nuns to adopt communal living patterns, over half of the nuns opted to quit the convent altogether!

Today's nuns are all there voluntarily, and have slightly more access to the outside world than their predecessors. They have microwaves and the internet, receive news every Sunday and can leave the complex to go to the doctor, the dentist or to visit sick relatives – but only accompanied by another nun, just in case they find themselves tempted by the evils of the outside world. It must be a beautiful place to live, but definitely not for me!