Vibrantly Intense Colors of Santa Catalina !!!

It is beautiful, historic, serene, quiet and last but not the least, vibrantly colorful. Founded in 1579, the Santa Catalina Monastery is like a mini city within the city of Arequipa. Women from diverse social backgrounds joined the monastery to serve as nuns. The families of the nuns built individual houses for them within the monastery. Some of the nuns' houses are very simple with a small room and a kitchen while others are much bigger with multiple rooms and two kitchens. Our guide explained that young daughters of wealthy families lived and grew up in those big individual houses with servants and maids. As they became teenagers, they became nuns in the monastery! 

A small part of the monastery is still in use and visitors are not allowed. The striking thing about this monastery is its simplicity and the intense & vibrant bright red, crimson, blue and yellow colored walls and buildings.  A bright and sunny day made it a more colorful and memorable visit!

The Silent Patio.

Section of the Monastery where novice nuns stayed.

Orange Tree Cloister.

The Infirmary.

A series of huge clay jars used by the nuns to wash their clothes. Water to each jar can be
individually controlled by stoppers! Notice the sillar (volcanic white rock) stone wall on the left.

As we walked through the various sections of the Santa Catalina Monastery and the nuns' houses, our guide was describing how life was for those nuns back in the 16th century. I felt as if I had stepped back in time!. The Santa Catalina Monastery is the crown jewel of Arequipa, and it did leave a very colorful impression on us!

Blanco Arequipa !!!

Posts about the history and culture of the Incas and their mastery of interlocked stone architecture are over and behind us :)  From Cusco, we took a morning flight and within couple of hours reached Arequipa.  Arequipa is called "The White City" for a reason. Almost all the buildings in the historic part of Arequipa are built from "Sillar", a white volcanic rock. In 1540s, the Spanish started building the Cathedrals, Churches and Mansions in Arequipa. The Spanish architecture is more visible to the tourist than anything related to the Incas. Arequipa is located in a valley at an elevation of 2328 meters (7638 feet).  On the eastern side, Arequipa is surrounded by three volcanoes: Misti, with a height of 5828 meters (19101 feet), Chachani with 6075 meters (19931 feet) and Pichu Pichu with 5669 meters (18599 feet). Wherever you are in Arequipa city, Misti is always visible.

View of Arequipa city and valley with volcano Misti looming large on the left and Pichu Pichu on the right

The "Mirador de Yanahuara" is a series of white stone arches that provide an excellent view of Arequipa
and the surrounding volcanoes.

Mirador de Yanahuara.

Very creatively carved tree trunk.

Iglesia de Yanahuara

Beautiful, sculptured facade of the Iglesia de Yanahuara!

Yanahuara street.

The stunning cloisters of the La Compania

La Compania cloisters and the fountain.

Plaza de Aramas

Arequipa is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and is definitely very unique with its white volcanic rock buildings, cathedrals, churches, monasteries, excellent food and it's proximity to the volcanoes Misti, Chachani and Pichu Pichu.

iPhone 6 Passes Torrey Pines Test!

After dropping off Shreya for her weekend activity, i had around an hour to kill. Decided to take my iPhone 6 camera for a test drive. What other place is better than Torrey Pines Beach ?  :)

This is the square option. Not sure I will use this too much!

Normal Photo option.

Taking Sunset photos at Torrey Pines is the ultimate test for iPhone 6 and it did pretty well :)

Click on the Panos and view them in Full Screen mode!

Pano option covers more than 180 degrees and does a very good job!

My favorite place, glowing in the golden Sun light! This is fantastic. I really didn't expect this photo to come out this well.

After 4 years with the Android camp, I very reluctantly jumped to the "i" camp! Camera features like Pano, Slow motion, Time-lapse and Square provide many different options and make it easy for the user. Though I miss all the controls provided by an Android Camera, I am really happy with the iPhone 6 camera!  Today,  I found a free iPhone App called "VSCO cam" that provides many ways to control the iPhone 6 camera, including manual exposure. Will try that out soon!

Golden Qorikancha !!!

After killing the the Inca king Atahualpa, the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro's men took over Cusco city  on November of 1533. They were simply blown away by the sheer quantity of gold they found inside the Qorikancha, the Sun temple in Cusco.  For the Incas, the Qorikancha was a sacred temple to worship the Sun, Moon, Stars, Rainbows, Lightning and Thunder. It was also used as a Solar Observatory. The Incas placed the shrine for the Sun at the elliptical wall at the Qorikancha. The Incas associated gold with the Sun and silver with the Moon. For them, gold is more religious than anything else. The top few feet of the walls of the Qorikancha were covered with gold to reflect the sunlight inside the temple. The Spaniards also found solid gold  sculptures of Llamas, Corn, vegetables and a large altar made of gold.  Unfortunately, within a month, all the gold and the solid gold sculptures were melted and shipped back to Spain.

Model of the Qorikancha showing the elliptical wall, the gold covered wall tops and the solid gold sculptures.

The Dominicans dismantled the Qorikancha and used the polished stones to build the Santa Domingo church and the convent on top of the foundation and the walls of the Qorikancha. Over many generations, people forgot about the Qorikancha.  On 21st May, 1950 a major earthquake hit Cusco. It brought down the walls of the Santa Domingo Church, exposing Qorikancha's walls. The then Peruvian government worked with the Spanish government and restored some parts of the Qorikancha. Based on the Qorikancha's ruins and the colonial architecture, Cusco was declared as  a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1983. 

The view of the elliptical wall from outside as it looks today. You can see the old Inca structures and the
Santa Domingo Church on top of it. The 1950 earthquake exposed
the foundation and the walls of the original Qorikancha.

The elliptical wall from inside. The stones are tightly locked together without mortar and this wall
has survived many earthquakes in the Cusco region!

These are some of the walls that were hidden under the Santa Domingo Church until the 1950 earthquake.

Since the stones used were not of the same size and weight, each wall had different number of
windows and niches to make sure the weights of all the walls are uniform.

Perfectly aligned windows. The third window is 60 feet away. Our guide was explaining that the Incas used
Llama intestines filled with water to check each wall is at level.

The Incas used many different types of interlocking to hold the stones of various sizes. They never used mortar,
the reason these walls survived many earthquakes.

It is believed this niche held the mummy of a Inca King and the empty holes around
the niche contained precious stones which were all removed by the Spaniards.

This is a model of the Incas' Cosmovision. The big oval shape in the top
represents the Incas' creator Viracocha. There are two hierarchies
shown. On the left is the male hierarchy showing the Sun,
Venus(morning), Lord Earth and a Man. On the right side is the
female hierarchy Moon, Venus(evening), Mother Sea and a Female.

Spanish Arches built over the Inca walls of the Qorikancha.

Courtyard of the Santa Domingo Church and Convent. On the right side is the long wall from the earlier photos.
When the Spaniards took over the Qorikancha, the eight sided sacrificial font at the center had been
covered with 55 Kilograms of gold!

Charlie's Web !!!

For the last one week, all of us are fascinated by Charlie. His knowledge of and experience with architecture and geometry is amazing, mesmerizing and mind-blowing. Charlie springs in to action in the evening around sunset. We love watching Charlie doing his work. Charlie is the name given by Swetha and Shreya to the spider (in fond memory of Charlotte's Web) who has taken over our backyard.

The Sun illuminating the web and the spider.

Though I have seen many spider webs and how the spider wraps its catch and eats it back home in India, this is definitely different and a large scale execution. A close examination of the spider web revealed many long anchors. The spider first builds these anchors and then constructs the spokes that lead from the anchors towards the center of the web. I counted 24 spokes in Charlie's web. Once the spokes are done, the spider starts at the outermost and weaves the threads that connects all the spokes. As it does, it reaches the center and  rests there waiting for a catch. Sometimes, it goes over the anchor threads again and again to make it really strong.  Then by midday or so, it completely dismantles the central web leaving the anchors in place. At sunset, the whole process of constructing the web starts again. As soon as we all get up and come down in the morning we check Charlie.

Charlie in action !!!

Today I grilled Panner Tikka and afterwards had left the grill cover open to cool it. Unfortunately the open grill cover was close to the plane where Charlie builds his web daily. We don't know how Charlie figured this out but he had moved the plane of the web a foot away from the open grill cover. We also noticed that Charlie had  moved one of his anchors today. The length of the longest anchor is approximately, 25 feet from a distance plant to the BBQ island. 

Of course, I am always eager to connect the earth to the deep sky and tried shooting the stars with Charlie's web in the foreground. This was a very difficult project and I had to throw some light on the web to make it visible.

The Big Dipper's (Ursa Major) handle is right above Charlie's Web. The large white streaks are the some of the anchors!

Whenever we go to the backyard, we are very gingerly walking around so that we don't disturb Charlies anchors. We all have become very attached to Charlie, even Swetha who is afraid of the tiniest, baby spider! :)  My respect and admiration for spiders have quadrupled a 1000 times! 

Colorful Corpus Christi !

The two days we stayed at Cusco coincided with the Corpus Christi festival. Colorful and elaborate processions and dances filled the streets around the Plaza de Armas. The plaza was packed with tourists as well as locals. We sat at the steps of the Cathedral and watched the colorful spectacle for almost an hour before heading out to a nice lunch at one of the restaurants nearby.

@Night: Cusco. The Incas' Milky Way !!!

For this memorable trip to Peru and Bolivia we used the services of Kuoda Travel based in Peru. A few weeks before the trip, Sheila and I were having a conversation with the Founder and President of Kuoda Travel, Mery Calderon. I casually mentioned to Mery that I love taking night sky photos and had been looking forward to take photos of the Milky Way during our trip. Mery immediately offered that she would provide me a car with a driver and a guide during one of the nights.  The plan was to visit a dark sky location so that I can capture the Milky Way. On our second evening at Cusco, after dinner, Alex and Marcos from Kuoda Travel picked me up from the San Blas Hotel and drove to a dark sky location about 30+ minutes from Cusco city.  We pulled over to the side of the road and I setup my camera on the tripod.  

The location was at a higher elevation than Cusco's 11,200 feet. The sky was very clear and the Moon hadn't risen yet. The Milky Way was clearly visible to the naked eyes. I was thrilled to see the Southern hemisphere constellations Corona Australis, Centaurus, Southern Cross, Triangulam Australe and the dark clouds of the southern Milky Way. These deep sky objects are visible only from the southern hemisphere. I spent around 45 minutes enjoying the Milky Way with my naked eyes as well as taking many photos.  Alex and Marcos were very much interested in what I was doing and saw every photo I took.  Half way through the photo session, another car pulled over. It was a local security guard who got suspicious of us. :) Once Alex explained what was going on, he drove away. 

The Milky Way played a significant role in the life, culture and the religion of the Incas. Especially, the Incas' mythologies are woven around the dark nebulae seen in the Milky Way. The picture below is from Qorikancha (Temple of the Sun) in Cusco, Peru. It depicts the Milky Way and the dark clouds venerated by the Incas.

Picture of Milky Way at Qorikancha, Cusco.

Using the Qorikancha picture as the reference, you can see the Shepherd, the Fox, the Llama, the baby Llama and the Partridge.
The eyes of the Llama are the famous stars Alpha and Beta Centauri. Very close to Alpha Centauri is the star Proxima Centauri,
the star closest to our Sun, just 4.24 light years away!

June 17, 2014. 8:36 PM (local time)
Took 9 overlapping frames of Milky Way and stitched them together using software.

This is my first attempt in taking and putting together a Milky Way Panorama. I am delighted that it turned out to be good. While Kuoda Travel did an outstanding job with this trip from planning to execution, this photo shoot would not have been possible without Mery's kindness and help from Alex and Marcos :)