A nice place to stay for 400 years

No, I'm not planning to spend the rest of my life and five future lives in Arequipa. Yesterday I visited what is probably Arequipa's most impressive site, the Convent of Santa Catalina, which was founded in 1579 and still exists. The current nuns (who are few in number) live in the new convent; the old one was opened to the public in 1970.

It's a pretty extensive place--about 2 hectares according to my guidebook, and I can believe it. It occupies the equivalent of several city blocks. The nuns who inhabited it lived more or less in seclusion from the outside world. Well, not complete seclusion: they weren't allowed out (ever, as far as I know) allowed visits every now and then, but only through a screen.


The girls who entered the convent were the useless daughters of rich families, who had to pay 100 silver pieces a year (I don't know what that is in today's dollars) to keep them there, and if I understood correctly, 1000 when they took their final vows. The families also had to build the rooms in which the nuns were lodged. Girls entered at age 12; the alternative was getting married at a similar age.

Life in the convent wasn't all bad, though. The beds may have been hard, but the rooms were large--probably three or four times as big as my hotel room in Arequipa.


(This is not my hotel room.)

And each nun had two or three servants (all women), who actually made up the majority of the inhabitants. And they could eat off their best china:



All good things must end, however, and after the First Vatican Council in 1870, the Pope put and end to all this "luxury", and booted out the servants and made the nuns live in dorms.

I haven't yet given you an idea of howtruly impressive this complex is. Have a look:





It costs 35 soles (about $12) to get in (down from 100 pieces of silver I guess) and if you want a guided tour (many languages available) there is an "optional tip" of 20 soles. I found the tour interesting, and have cribbed most of the information in this post from what I remember (I didn't make the same mistake as my guide and call the Vatican Council "the reformation" though :) I wandered around for a while on my own after the tour and took more photos. I've said many times that if I had lived in the Middle Ages I would have entered a monastery, and this place did nothing to change my mind on that. But as for my own middle ages, I think I'll stick with life on the outside.