Peru Tour - 12 - Lima

5 Jan 2006 – Lima

Last day in Peru! Got up lazily. I was awake by 5:30 am…don’t know why I am waking up early here.  After breakfast we walked to the coast which is about 1 mile from our hotel. It was a nice coastline, but a little hazy and cloudy to see the mountains. We walked towards the Garden of Love (Parque de Amor).  The walk was all along the coast.  Lovely walk. The garden has a huge sculpture of a couple kissing – so romantic.

We had an excellent falafel sandwich at a Middle Eastern restaurant and then we found Café Café – and had chocolate cake. It was a little heavy but heavenly. It was so much that Bhaiya and I could not finish even one slice.  On the way back we stopped at the Metro (store) to get some chocolate and drinks for later.

I took a short nap and then packed. We checked out and then our guide came to pick us up for the tour.

Our first stop was the – yes – Parque de Amor. It was built to promote love and peace.  We then saw an archeological site in Miraflores (the old town). It was pyramid like structure of about 500-600 years old, made of just mud bricks. These were pre-Inca made in the Lima area. Then we drove to Sunny Cedar, where the houses are more upscale and really pretty. One cannot really see them as they all have walls around them.

Parque de Amor

Old archaeological site in Lima

Then another archaeological site – this was a museum where there were some mummies in fetal position, and some arts and crafts.  And then we drove to downtown Lima. I felt here that Lima was like Delhi – old and new buildings. Saw some nice buildings – the Sheraton hotel (built on the old jail site), and the justice building opposite it.

Next stop was near the Palace in the central square. There were the two yellow buildings on two sides, a church one and a palace on fourth side. It was all quiet as there was some protest going on so the police had barricaded the area. We walked to the back of the church to get inside. It was a very different church from the one in Cusco. It had many chapels on both sides. The choir was near the front and there were beautiful lamps hanging from the ceiling. There was also a section dedicated to the founder of Lima – all made of mosaic.

And then we went down to the catacombs where all the bishops were buried. It was a spooky place and had a strange smell. There were graves here from 1710s…old!

Then we walked to another cathedral which is partly turned into a museum. We visited the museum part also. The design was very different than the other churches. Again the structure was built to support earthquakes.

The library was very impressive – it was old and had more than 24,000 scripts. There was a lot of natural lighting as candles were not permitted.

The church was beautiful as was the choir area. The catacombs in this church were made in three levels. Over 2000 bodies had been found in these graves and the bones were still there! The bones were all there in separate tank like areas. This catacomb was even spookier than the previous one.

That was the end of our tour.

Catacombs! 

We got dropped off at Kennedy Park as we requested. We got tickets for the Mirabus for 8 pm and then sat at the Parque de Amor for a while. On just observing people there it seemed like Lima was really open in their intimacy, sometimes I felt it was a little too much – feel like saying “get a bedroom!”  We saw the sunset at 6:30 pm – just lovely. We walked to the food street again to have dinner (pizza!).

Sadly the Mirabus bus was not working properly so we got our refund but we also had another hour and a half to kill before going back to the hotel to go back to the airport. Sat in the park till sunset. 

The journey back to USA was not bad, I slept a lot – I had been feeling under the weather all day.

Back to Kansas City! 

Peru Tour - 11 - Arequipa

4 Jan 2006 – Arequipa -> Lima

Today there was no rush to get up. Had really good breakfast today – it included mangoes! We had to check out early as the manager would not allow us there till 2 pm. our guide Norma came to take us around Arequipa.

We first went to the Cathedral, and the companion church. Then got dropped off at Santa Catalina, a place for nuns. From there we went to see a huge church! We had seen it from outside. It is an international church.  It had a clock from England, pulpit from France, and Chandelier from Belgium. There were apostle statues on the pillars inside and a beautiful nativity scene.

Cathedral

Next was the walk across the plaza to the companion church. This church was baroque style with 14 K gold plating on the cedar wood – very beautiful. Earthquakes are a common problem here also in Arequipa – so these churches have been rebuilt. Adjacent to the church is a chapel. It was beautifully painted.  All the pigments were natural – the red one had to be done again. Flash photography is not allowed so we took some without flash.

Next to the church were some buildings which was given to the local artists and businesses. Nice…and pretty.

Then our driver, George, came and took us to some higher elevation spots from where we could see the Chile River and the whole city. If the day had been clear we could have seen the three volcano craters also.

Norma showed us the Maca products. This is used by the Colca people for energy in the mountains. Coca tea is popular but so are maca products – the candy and liqueur. We walked around and came across and mama and baby llama. The baby was so cute! It was so scared! Poor thing.

Next stop was Santa Catalina. We took the one hour tour at 11:30 am. This is a 400 year old place for training nuns. Rich or poor – the girls came here to become nuns. The place was like a castle in India – except much prettier and maintained really well. The rooms for the rich were different than the ones for the poor – strange. The mother nun had a huge kitchen to herself – why? Most of the buildings had arches to protect it from earthquakes.

We saw old kitchens, living rooms etc. the entire nun place was about 3 blocks long and 2 blocks wide. It was literally like a city inside with streets and beautiful garden areas.  The entire place was just beautifully painted and well maintained. There were so many photo ops and I took advantage of all of them. Amazing place.

Came back to the hotel – took a little nap in the waiting area and then our guide came to take us to the airport.  We arrived at Lima around 5 pm. Ulysses, our temporary guide, took us to our hotel. Lima is definitely a big city! It took us 50 mins to get there – the old part of town.

The city could be any big city in India, crazy driving, too many people (about 9 million), and public transport with great deal of noise and pollution and commercialization. And just like India, usually businesses and residences are mixed, a lot of times, business downstairs and residence upstairs.

Hotel was okay. We signed up for a 2pm city tour for next day and then went out to Kennedy square/Gardens in search for Indian market, as our guide said it was there. It was a long walk. After a long fuss, we found there was a small market in the park area. There was nothing much unique about the shopping here.

We saw a street on the right which was very brightly lit. We went and found that it was a street just lined with restaurants.  And as in Agua Calientes the waiters were standing out with the menu to invite us in. we did go in one – Bhaiya again had lasagna – not good at all, and I had some cheese bread.

Started walking back to the hotel, tried to look for a dessert place but did not find any. Found some stores but nothing special.  Just came back to the hotel and slept!