We arrived in Lima when it was getting on for 7ish, it was dark and busy – mentally busy. The traffic was insane and it took us hours to get from the outskirts of Lima to our bus station. One 15 soles cab ride later we were outside the dodgiest looking doorway in the area. We lumped our bags up top the second floor to a tiny, artificially lit corridor. The bloke behind the desk didn't speak much English but it transpired that our room wasn't ready (surprise) so we had to stay in another room for the first night etc. We got shown this room and Bindya's face dropped. It was basically an ordinary sized room that had been divided by a piece of plywood – they hadn't even bothered to take the posters off the wall, just left them, split in two. We had the bit that used to be the bathroom – tiles on the wall, one tiny window overlooking a rubbish dump, persitant smell of damp. We were fairly close to walking out when there was a knock at the door. It was 'Ronald', from the tour agency in the room next door – well, the rest of our room really – he spoke good English and wanted to translate for the bloke at reception. He said that because we didn't get our room we were going to get our first night for free and move us to a proper double room with private bathroom the next night. We agreed and, when we checked the wifi, it was great so we loaded up a couple of Eastenders and headed out for dinner. Yum – Burger King....
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| Can you see the window? |
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| There's the view.... |
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| Plaza de Arms |
The next day we moved to our new room – it was much larger, had a bathroom, but couldn't pick up the wifi down the corridor. The first thing we did was head out to look for another hostel.and found the Flying Dog Hostel, it has a good central location (near the bars) and had a nicer room with a proper bathroom and a window. We even used out ITIC card and got a 10% discount. After this we headed to a cafe for breakfast (well more like lunch) and then planned the rest of our day which consisted of doing some sightseeing in Central Lima, as it had the Plaza and museums and important cathedrals, churches and political buildings. What we seemed to have got from Lonely Planet and the hostels was it really wasn't safe to walk around too much of Lima and Taxi were the way forward. We hailed a cab, haggled and then headed to central Lima. We visited the Plaza de Armas which is a really pretty square and surrounded by colourful and ornate buildings.
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| Presidential Palace and Guards |
We saw the Presidential Palace which houses the government (which had changed recentlt due to the Peruvian election) and like the houses of Parliment that have guards which guard the front in colourful uniforms and change guard every day. We then headed to a monastary which housed the remains for 2 saints and murals explaining the miracles which made them priests, we decided to enjoy the place rather then get a tour guide, however a Spainsh women (who didn't look like a tour guide to us) was amazed we did not have a guide and though she spoke very little English decided to take it upon herself to try and explain what the place was about....Neil tried to shake her off but we were unable to. Then we headed to the Church of San Fransisco which housed catacombs (Neil was excited by this and so was I ) We bought our ticket and were asked to wait for ther English tour, we waited about 40 minutes and finally allowed in. The building was beautiful with amazing wooden carved dome ceiling, an ancient library collection (we both want one just like it when we get a house), an ornate choir room and moorish looking church.
We were led around for a bit to see the choir room and library and stuff – the library was straight out of a Harry Potter film and I want one. After a bit we finally got to go down to the catacombs. It took a while for us to work out exactly what it was all about. I was under the impression that catacombs were where you put bones of people after they'd been buried and decomposed but the graveyard was full. It turned out that actually people were just put in the catacombs, covered in lime and left. After archaeologists had started to investigate the tombs and, bizarrely, arrange the bones in attractive rows and nail a few skulls to the wall for added effect, they discovered around 25 000 skeletons. The ceiling was very low and I kept banging my head and we weren't allowed to take photos but it was still very good.
After this we found the museum of the Spanish Inquisition. We were forced to take a tour guide again but she spoke Spanish so we dumped her and ran around laughing at the dummies of torture victims etc. They were seriously mental. Outside was some sort of mural which we think was to commemorate the pardoning of all the victims of The Inquisition. I was a little surprised that this existed as I just assumed that everyone realised they were generally innocent anyway and didn't require pardoning.
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| Neil and the Spainsh Inquisition |
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| It's behind you.... |
After a full day of sightseeing we headed back home for some dinner, drinks and bed. It would be out last night in the hostel before we went off to the flying dog hostel.
Next morning up and out early to check out and go to our new hostel. Room wasn't ready so we dumped out bags and headed out for Breakfast (lunch) and then headed back to Central Lima to finish off on the sightseeing in that area. We first headed to the Art Museum of Lima, unfortunatley there was only one exhibition on at the time but we went in and had a look anyway. Man from USA (Matta-Clark) who cuts large chunks out of buildings...some great some not so great. We then walked down to Plaza San Martin to see the famous statue in which a women is holding up the main statue, on her head should be a crown of flames, however in Spainsh the same word for flames also means Llama and so the sculptor put a Llama on her head.
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| Llama on Head |
I had read about a old Hotel called the Grand Hotel Boliviar in which they have a swanky, old school cocktail bar and have famous Pisco Sours (Peru National Cocktail) we headed in and had a Pisco Sour before heading back to the Plaza off to see main Catherdral, in which we managed to tag ourselves onto a American tour to get the historial information. The quality of statues and religious art in the small museum attached was great and some a little amusing. By this point it was getting late and so we headed back to the hostel, try out the WIFI, get a shower (not hot though), take in the view (over the park) and a chill out before heading out for some dinner, getting a bottle of rum and chilling out.
Next day we decided that a we derserved a chill day, getting up late, chatting to family on Skype, catch up on Eastenders before having a heavy night out. Neil insisted that we try the breakfast so we got up (me only just) but having got downstairs we realised that breakfast was across the park in a cafe....nice but when I haven't bothered to do my hair or anything!!
We drank a lot of Rum during the day to get ready for out night out in Lima, after trying to feel like a women getting ready on a Saturday night out i.e. GHD's and some minimal makeup (I have no foundation with me on this trip!) we headed out to find some happy hours, which we did on Pizza Street (main bar strip) and then headed in to Karaoke place.
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| Night in Lima |
Karaoke was great – a combination of very serious people doing very serious love songs in Spanish and the occasional drunk doing an English song badly. We eventually put our names down for Queen – Don't Stop Me Now – but we didn't have time to do it. Some extremely drunk woman had sat next to me and kept trying to put her feet up on my leg – my loving wife was, understanderbly, vexed by this and was offering to solve the issue with extreme prejudice . Instead, we left to go to the bar next door, 'Canadian Club', for a drink. We had walked past it a couple of times and people outside had tried to encourage us in. We went down the steps to the club, Bindya got waved in, the bouncer stopped me and patted me down. He asked if I had a camera, I said yes, he said, 'No photos'. I started to get an inkling that something wasn't quite right here. We went in and Bindya was looking at the price list above the bar, trying to work out why women had a more expensive price list than men. I only took a brief glance around before I stopped looking around and suggested that we might want to go somewhere else. All I remember is a sea of bra and pants, with occasional islands of big, sweaty men. The women were very 'professional' looking, let's put it that way. We left and headed down Pizza Street. We went into loads of different 'clubs', most really rubbish, but finished in a place that was OK.
Next day we woke up with a sore head, but with had to get up, get ready, pack and check out. We left our bags at the hostel as our overnight bus wasn't due till 10pm. So we headed to Museum Larco which is a private collection of ceramic, precious metals and artifacts dating back well before the Incas. They are famous for their erotic ceramic art as well (thanks Maria for the head's up...i dont mean you Maria Christopher). Anyway it was a great museum, great ceremic, learnt a hell of a lot, the pics are long but great.
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| Example of family friendly ceramic |
We finished in the museum and had not come across the ceremic erotic art and after a lot of looking and nearly having to ask we found it. The pics will speak for themselves...check ou the dead man pics and the facial expressions of some....maybe something only for the adults...Andy...just to let you know Neil was thinking about you...something just reminded him of you....not sure what.
After, we headed to the Inca ruin of Huaca Pucllana which was a adminstrative and religious place for the Limean civilisation. It was a basically just a big pile of sand for many centuries until around 1991 when people started to dig down a bit and start to restore the ancient temple. It was quite impressive even though it was a mud temple. Our guide was very knowledgable and we learnt a lot about the Limeas. The usual human sacrifice stuff etc.
After a repeat dinner of chicken kebabs we headed out to the bus station and got on our posh bus.
P.s Neil has now begun to peel...check forehead pic on Facebook link, we went to the beach of Lima (very cold and windy) and went to the garden of Love too.
A big THANK YOU to Kim Constable who gave us a generous wedding gift which got us most of our 4 day stay in Lima.
Just want to say a thank for to all those who still read out blog and of you are reading it can you please write a comment saying who you are as we have realised it isn't just people in Britain reading us but actually in lots of other countries.
Links to Pics....
Lima the city
Lima Larco Museum
Lima Erotic Art (not for children)
Lima and Huacu Pucllana
