What to see in Arequipa, the best tourist attractions

Arequipa is the city in Peru that most surprises visitors who arrive without formed expectations. It does not have the historical density of Cusco or the chaotic energy of Lima, but it has something neither of them has: such a strong identity of its own that Arequipeños express it with a regional pride that has no equivalent in Peru. They call it the White City because of sillar, the cream-colored volcanic stone used to build most of its colonial buildings, which gives the historic center a texture and brightness that change completely with the daylight. Behind the city, the Misti volcano rises to 5,822 meters with a perfect symmetry that on clear days seems almost unreal. And between the colonial center, the volcano, and the Colca Canyon just a few hours away, Arequipa concentrates in a few square kilometers a variety of experiences that few cities in Peru can match.

The Monastery of Santa Catalina: a city within the city

The Monastery of Santa Catalina is Arequipa’s most important attraction and one of the most unique in all of South America. It is not a conventional convent but a 20,000-square-meter complex with streets, plazas, cloisters, cells, and gardens that for three centuries functioned as a closed community completely separated from the city around it. It was founded in 1579 by an Arequipeña widow named María de Guzmán and during the following centuries became the destination for the daughters of the region’s wealthiest families, who entered as girls and lived within its walls until death.

What makes the monastery unique is that this history of enclosure can be physically walked through. The interior alleyways, some painted deep blue and others ocher red, have a visual coherence that feels less colonial than Mediterranean. The cells of the wealthier nuns had their own kitchens, sitting rooms, and servants. The humbler ones were minimal spaces where austerity was the only decoration. The Arch of Silence, the central fountain of the main cloister, and the laundry area with its ceramic jars are the most photographed points of the route, but the entire complex has a coherence that no photograph fully captures.

Part of the monastery is still cloistered, and the remaining nuns live in the section that is not open to the public. At certain times of the day, their presence can be felt from the open corridors through the sound of the Angelus at noon. The guided visit in Spanish, English, or Portuguese lasts between one hour and one hour and a half. Admission costs 40 soles for foreign adults and 20 soles for young people from 7 to 21 years old. It opens every day except Thursdays, when it has extended hours until 8:30 p.m.

The Plaza de Armas: the center of everything

Arequipa’s Plaza de Armas is one of the most architecturally balanced public spaces in all of Peru. It is surrounded by arcaded portals made of sillar on three of its sides and dominated on the fourth by the façade of the Cathedral Basilica of Santa María, which occupies the entire northern side of the square with its twin towers and its white sillar Baroque portal. The combination of the cream color of the sillar, the green of the central gardens, and the blue of the Arequipeño sky in the dry season creates a visual palette that looks retouched in photographs but is the one that naturally exists at that latitude and that altitude of 2,335 meters.

The Cathedral was originally built in the 17th century and rebuilt several times after the earthquakes that have affected Arequipa throughout its history. The interior has five naves, an organ brought from Belgium in the 19th century, and a museum with pieces of colonial gold and silverwork and paintings from the Arequipeño school. From the bell tower there are panoramic views over the square and the Misti volcano that justify the climb.

In the southeast corner of the square is the Church of the Company of Jesus, whose Baroque sillar façade is considered one of the best examples of Arequipeño Baroque, a specific style that blends Spanish Baroque with Andean iconographic elements in a combination that appears in no other architectural tradition of the colonial American world.

The Andean Sanctuaries Museum and the Juanita Mummy

The Andean Sanctuaries Museum of the Catholic University of Santa María, on Calle La Merced in the historic center, houses Arequipa’s most important archaeological discovery and one of the most significant finds in pre-Columbian Peru in recent decades: the Juanita Mummy, also known as the Lady of Ampato.

Juanita was found in 1995 by archaeologist Johan Reinhard on the slopes of the Ampato volcano, at more than 6,000 meters above sea level. She is a young girl between 12 and 14 years old who was sacrificed by the Incas around the year 1450 in a capacocha ceremony, the ritual of the highest offering to the sun that the Incas performed at moments of special political or religious importance. The extreme conditions at the summit of Ampato preserved Juanita’s body with an integrity unmatched by any other Inca mummy found so far: the skin, hair, internal organs, and clothing she wore on the day of her death are preserved in a level of detail that is unsettling the first time you see her.

The museum visit includes an audiovisual presentation about the discovery and the historical context of the sacrifice before entering the room where Juanita is preserved in a temperature- and humidity-controlled display case. The objects that accompanied her at the top of the volcano, including gold, silver, and spondylus figurines and textiles of extraordinary quality, are displayed in the adjacent rooms.

The Yanahuara Viewpoint

The Yanahuara Viewpoint is in the district of the same name, about a 10- or 15-minute walk from the Plaza de Armas. It is a terrace with sillar arches from which you get the most complete view of Arequipa as an urban whole with the Misti volcano in the background. On clear days during the dry season between May and September, the three volcanoes that surround the city are visible at the same time: Misti at 5,822 meters, Chachani at 6,057 meters, and Pichu Pichu at 5,664 meters.

The arches of the viewpoint are engraved with phrases by notable Arequipeño writers and thinkers about their city. It is a free public space that in practice functions as the place where Arequipeños take their visitors to show them the city from above before anything else. The Yanahuara neighborhood around the viewpoint has some of the best picanterías in Arequipa, which makes the combination of viewpoint and lunch the most characteristic plan the district offers.

Colca Canyon: the most important natural attraction

Colca Canyon is about 160 kilometers from Arequipa and can be reached in approximately three hours by road. It is one of the deepest canyons in the world, with walls that in some points reach 4,160 meters deep, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in Colorado. But what makes Colca a world-class attraction is not only the depth of the canyon but the combination of landscape, culture, and wildlife it offers in a single route.

The Cruz del Cóndor Viewpoint, about two or three kilometers from the town of Cabanaconde, is the most visited point of the canyon and the place where Andean condors use the thermal air currents rising from the bottom of the canyon to glide at great heights. The Andean condor, with a wingspan of up to 3.3 meters, is the largest flying bird in the world. Seeing them glide just a few meters above the level of the viewpoint is an experience that has no equivalent anywhere else in Peru accessible without a multi-day trek.

The best time to see condors at the viewpoint is between 8 and 10 in the morning, when the thermal currents are most active. That means that to reach the viewpoint at that time from Arequipa, you need to leave between 3 and 4 in the morning, which is why most travelers choose the two-day version with an overnight stay in the town of Chivay.

The road between Arequipa and Colca Canyon crosses the Salinas and Aguada Blanca National Reserve, a high plateau at more than 4,000 meters where you can see vicuñas, guanacos, alpacas, and pink flamingos in the wetlands and lagoons along the way. This wildlife of the Andean highlands, which appears without any additional tourist intervention during the journey, is one of the most valued elements of the route for those doing it for the first time.

Picanterías: Arequipeño gastronomy

Arequipa has one of the strongest and most independent culinary traditions in Peru. Picanterías are the popular Arequipeño restaurants where local cuisine is served in its most authentic form: rocoto relleno stuffed with ground beef and raisins and gratinated with cheese, chupe de camarones made with shrimp from the Majes River, pork adobo marinated in chicha de guiñapo and spices and eaten for breakfast on Sundays, Arequipeño ocopa with yellow chili pepper and huacatay, and whole fried cuy chactado served with potatoes and corn.

Chicha de guiñapo, the fermented black corn drink produced specifically in Arequipa, accompanies picantería food with an acidity and body that has no equivalent in any other chicha in Peru. In 2013, Arequipa’s picantería system was declared Cultural Heritage of the Nation.

The best picanterías in the historic center and in the districts of Yanahuara and Cayma are places with decades of history where recipes are passed down from generation to generation. Having lunch in one of them is one of the most complete gastronomic experiences in Peru outside Lima.

The San Camilo Market

The San Camilo Market, declared a Monumental Historic Heritage site in 1987, is four blocks from the Plaza de Armas in the historic center. It is the city’s most important food market and the one that best concentrates the diversity of products from the Arequipa region: fruits from the coast and inter-Andean valleys, cheeses from the Majes and Characato valleys, spices for picantería recipes, alpaca textiles, and local handicrafts.

The second floor of the market has food stalls with the most representative dishes of Arequipeño cuisine at prices far below those of any restaurant in the historic center. Helado de queso, one of Arequipa’s most unique products, is sold in the market and in the stalls around the square. It is a preparation made with fresh Arequipeño cheese that resembles no other ice cream in Peru and that always surprises first-timers with its texture and its flavor between salty and sweet.

Misti Volcano and Cotahuasi Canyon

For those who travel to Arequipa with extra time and good physical condition, two more demanding attractions complement the route through the historic center and Colca.

The ascent to Misti Volcano is a two-day expedition that requires good physical condition, prior acclimatization to the altitude, and a certified guide. The summit at 5,822 meters offers views over the city and the high plateau that on clear days reach the Pacific Ocean on the horizon. It is not a technical mountaineering climb, but the altitude and the duration of the route put it out of reach for anyone who has not spent at least two or three days in Arequipa before attempting it.

Cotahuasi Canyon, 379 kilometers from Arequipa, is with its 3,535 meters of depth in some points one of the deepest canyons in the world, even deeper than Colca. It is more remote, less visited, and more logistically demanding, but it offers a landscape and isolation experience that Colca, with its more developed tourist infrastructure, can no longer provide.

How much time to dedicate to Arequipa

With two days you can see the historic center with the Monastery of Santa Catalina, the Plaza de Armas, the Cathedral, the Andean Sanctuaries Museum, the Yanahuara Viewpoint, the San Camilo Market, and a meal at a picantería. With three or four days, you can add Colca Canyon with an overnight stay in Chivay. With more time, Cotahuasi Canyon or the ascent to Misti are the options for those who have the condition and interest to go beyond the standard circuit.

Arequipa is one hour by plane from Lima and five or six hours from Cusco by road, or one hour by plane. For those doing the Lima-Arequipa-Cusco-Machu Picchu circuit, Arequipa occupies a natural place in the itinerary as an intermediate point between the capital and the southern valleys.