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Published: March 31st 2014
Day 40. Arrived in Lima at 8 am having had some sleep on overnight bus. We arrived in peak hour with Saturday being just as busy as a week day. Lima is a big city (officially nearly 9 mill but thought to be 10) requiring a long drive through the smoggy outskirts with the same decrepit buildings and roadside rubbish & has grown too fast without proper planning.
Changed to a minibus at the bus station & headed for breakfast in our hotel in Miraflores, an upmarket district full of hotels, cafés, pubs, restaurants and shops. After breakfast we took a light rail train in to Lima for a walking tour of the historical central area. The city was founded by Spanish conquers in the 1500’s and dbuilt on top of an existing Inca palace and temples. The city's historical centre is well-preserved around Plaza De Armas and the Cathedral and surrounded by streets of ornate colonial mansions, palaces and churches which has a UNESCO world heritage listing due to its former colonial importance.
After watching a modified weekend changing of the guard to the Presidential palace we has a guided tour of the San Franciscan Monastery & catacombs.
The monastery contains a superb library, paintings by masters, as well as catacombs containing the partial skeletons of many thousands of locals killed during the inquisitions to convert the natives to Catholicism.
The most amazing painting was of the last supper painted in the 1600's and is untypical of normal religious paintings as it includes Inca references to food & drink being potatoes, guinea pig, cerviche & chicha. Judas was identified by an image of the devil looking over his shoulder.
Lima had a major earthquake in 1974 & while it caused damage to the whole city it led to the discovery of previously unknown fresco's on the monastery walls.
Returned to the hotel around 2 pm for some free time for laundry, sleep, shop for supplies etc.
In the evening we all went to a traditional Peruvian restaurant to celebrate my birthday. Lights went out during the middle of our meal as it also coincided with Earth Day. Ruth surprised me with a birthday cake & luckily there was enough candle power on the cake to light up the whole room. A few Herbis liqueurs back at the hotel topped off a great night.
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