Arequipa

Arequipa is built almost entirely from sillar, the pale volcanic stone that gives the old centre its glare and the city its name, la ciudad blanca. Three volcanoes stand over it, Misti, Chachani and Pichu Pichu, framed by the stone arches of the Yanahuara Viewpoint. Santa Catalina Monastery is a walled town of its own, twenty thousand square metres of blue and ochre lanes that stayed closed to outsiders for nearly four hundred years. Museo Santuarios Andinos holds Juanita, an Inca girl found frozen on a nearby summit, offered to the mountains five centuries ago. Arequipeños are stubborn about their independence and prouder still of their food, argued to be Peru's best and eaten in picanterías: river-prawn chowder, stuffed rocoto peppers, slow-cooked meats. Colca Canyon drops twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, and condors pass close at Cruz del Cóndor.