Lima - Markets & Monastery

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We were awake too early for the hostel breakfast so - keeping with our “safe foods policy” - we had bacon and egg muffins from McDonald’s along with “real” coffee from McCafe.

This was to be our last day in Peru and we really had nothing planned. To be honest since the incredible few days at Machu Picchu and my bout of food poisoning we had both started to switch to Cuba mode. Once you’ve seen Machu Picchu everything else is decidedly average.

At 0830 we struggled through our prepaid hostel breakfast and headed back to the market, this time to buy a couple of souvenirs and gifts. Rather amusingly, having spent so many leisurely hours walking through markets during our stay in Peru, when we were ready to buy we struggled to find anything worth buying - at least not within our price range. We walked away with some small Incan “silver” jewellery for Jo and a few other knick-knacks.

By midday I was already tired so I got a few hours sleep prior to catching a cab S15 to Plaza de Armas, one of our first stops in Peru. Traffic was abysmal and several roads were blocked so we spent almost an hour in a cab before arriving at the Plaza. This time around the streets around the Plaza were open. The surreal “tourist only” feeling of the place had gone as locals mingled and snapped photos of each other.

About two blocks away from Plaza de Armas we found Convento Santo Domingo, a monastery that was home to San Martin de Porres, one of the few black saints. Admission was S5 each and we made our way slowly through taking photos and video - enjoying the respite from the central city buzz on the other side of the walls. We were back in Plaza de Armas in plenty of time for nightfall and I spent a good 45 minutes taking photos.

Dinner was a couple of large slices of pizza at a small diner close to the plaza S4 each. We turned down a couple of S25 taxis back to Miraflores before finding a bloke in a tiny Daewoo that was asking the more acceptable price of S15.

Back for the final time at Flying Dog Hostel we packed for our flights to Havana and were in bed by 2030.

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