Museo Santuarios Andinos (Mummy Juanita) & Colonial Sillar Mansions Guide

Beyond its grand churches and convents, Arequipa's UNESCO historic centre preserves both the most important high-altitude Inca archaeological discovery of the twentieth century and a remarkable sequence of eighteenth-century patrician mansions (casonas solariegas) built of vaulted white and pink sillar stone.

1. Museo Santuarios Andinos & the Ice Maiden Juanita (La Dama de Ampato)

Located at Calle La Merced 110 just one block south of the Plaza de Armas, the Museo Santuarios Andinos of the Catholic University of Santa María (UCSM) presents the findings of high-altitude archaeological expeditions across the 6,000-metre volcanic summits of southern Peru:

• The 1995 Discovery on Nevado Ampato (6,288 m): In September 1995, volcanic ash from erupting Sabancaya volcano darkened and melted the summit glacier of neighbouring Nevado Ampato (6,288 metres) in the Colca range. Climbing the crater rim on 8 September 1995, anthropologist Johan Reinhard and Arequipa mountaineer Miguel Zárate discovered the frozen bundle of a 12-to-14-year-old Inca girl offered around 1450 to 1480 during the imperial Capacocha ceremony to appease the mountain deity (Apu).
• What You See on the Guided Tour: Because the body was frozen solid at altitude rather than artificially mummified, Juanita is preserved in a custom dual-chamber glass unit kept at -19°C. Before entering the darkened sanctuary room, a mandatory twenty-minute documentary and guided walkthrough display the sacred offerings buried beside her: miniature gold, silver, and red Spondylus shell figurines (illa), finely woven red-and-white alpaca shawls (lliklla), leather sandals, and imperial Inca ceramics from Cusco.
• Important Seasonal Calendar (May to December vs January to April): To protect her tissues, Juanita is on public view from 1 May to 31 December; from 1 January to 30 April, she rests in conservation and visitors view the equally moving frozen Capacocha mummy Sarita (discovered on Volcán Sara Sara). Check the official UCSM museum portal for current opening times.

2. Eighteenth-Century Sillar Mansions: Casa del Moral & Tristán del Pozo

• Casa del Moral (Calle Moral 318, c. 1730): Named after the two-centuries-old mulberry tree (morera) shading its central stone courtyard, this aristocratic mansion features one of Arequipa's finest Mestizo Baroque portals (carved with pumas, keys, serpents, and a Spanish royal crest), period bedrooms furnished with colonial chests and Cusqueña paintings, an ancient map room of South America, and an indigo-and-ochre courtyard.
• Casa Tristán del Pozo (Calle Santo Domingo 115, 1738) & Casa Goyeneche: Walk past the lacy triangular sillar gable of Casa Tristán del Pozo (where Franco-Peruvian writer Flora Tristán stayed in 1833; today a free art gallery and bank courtyard).

3. Monasterio de Santa Teresa (1710) & Convento de la Recoleta (1648)

For a serene complement to Santa Catalina, visit the active Carmelite Monasterio e Museo Virreinal de Santa Teresa (Calle Melgar 303, where you can also purchase handmade convent sweets through a wooden revolving turnstile, or torno) and the 1648 Franciscan Convento de la Recoleta across the river, famed for its four cloisters and 20,000-volume historic library.