Arequipa

Arequipa is white. The colonial centre is built almost entirely from sillar, a pale volcanic stone quarried from the slopes of the three volcanoes that stand over the city, and in late afternoon the whole place turns the colour of warm bone. Our Arequipa messenger bag is the amber and rust of that light on that stone, cut from handwoven cloth in the sun family, Inti.

The city

At 2,300 metres, Arequipa is lower and drier than the highland cities, and it has always thought of itself as a place apart: a republic within the republic, the locals say. The historic centre, a World Heritage site, is arcades and courtyards and churches in white sillar around a plaza with El Misti, a near-perfect 5,800-metre cone, filling the view behind the cathedral. It is Peru's second city and the one with the best food.

The stone and the monastery

Sillar is soft when cut and hardens in the air, which is why the carving on Arequipa's church fronts is so deep. The Santa Catalina monastery, a walled town within the town painted in ochre and blue, is the place to see it. The countryside around is the Colca canyon, twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, and the terraced valleys where condors ride the morning thermals.

The bag named Arequipa

The Arequipa is a messenger bag built from hard-wearing handwoven Andean cloth in amber tones with a high-chroma stripe, one of three bags we make and the warmest. Same cloth family as the Nazca snapback and the Oruro ball cap.

Other cities

All twenty on the cities. Cusco · Písac · Urubamba · Maras · Puno · Huaraz · Nazca · Paracas · Callao · Iquitos · Cajamarca · Tacna · La Paz · El Alto · Copacabana · Oruro · Potosí · Sucre · Cochabamba. See all the pieces named for Andean towns on headwear and bags, and the cloth families on the weaves.