The three-storied convent at Santa Clara faces the ocean and has a garden dividing the building into two wings. The garden contains ferns, banana and palm trees, and a "colossal tree with vanilla vines and strings of orchids" (63) hanging from it. The right wing houses the nuns, who interact with the main chapel through a jalousie "through which they could not see or be seen" (63). Eighty-two Spanish women and thirty-six American-born daughters of viceroys make up the cloistered nuns at the time of Sierva María's arrival. They have all taken vows of "poverty, silence, and chastity" (64), and can only communicate with the outside world in the locutory, where they can hear but not see or be seen by visitors. These visits always require the presence of a chaperone.

The left wing of the convent contains "every kind of workshop" (63), with craftspeople on hand to teach their trades. There is also a kitchen, a butcher, and a bread oven. In the back, a courtyard "always flooded with dirty wash water" (63) houses a group of slaves. Beyond the courtyard, the livestock, horses, bees, and garden are kept. Past that, at the point farthest from the convent stands "a solitary pavilion" (63) which had been used for sixty-eight years by the Spanish Inquisition as a prison.