Peru, Arequipa

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Arequipa is a chilled out place full of white colonial buildings and surrounded by towering Andean volcanoes. The coolest thing for us was visiting Juanita the Ice Maiden, one of the world's most preserved mummies (as in the shrouded kind not a mum with a face lift). Her story's a sad one - Juanita was an upper class Inca girl of about 12-years old who was lead to the top of Mount Ampata, a 6000m+ volcano, and sacrificed to the mountain gods in a bid to prevent eruptions. It sounds barbaric but to Juanita it would have been a privilege, like she was becoming a god herself. The glacial ice in which she was buried stopped her body going into rigor mortis and preserved her almost perfectly for 500-years. She was discovered in 1995 after a neighbouring volcano erupted melting the ice and exposing Juanita for the first time. Found 15-days later, Juanita still had hair, skin and all her vital organs. Scientists were able to determine her last meal was a strong corn alcohol given to numb death, and coca leaves to help with altitude. Today Juanita is once again frozen in ice but this time in a special glass freezer. The artifacts she was buried with look like they could have been made yesterday, it was astounding to see. We weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum so this one's a download, which you probably guessed. The rest of our pics are of Arequipa itself. [Clare]