Lima, Peru

From Trujillo I caught another night bus and made it to Lima the next morning. I had heard nothing but bad things about Lima so I was only there for the day then off to another town south of the capital. I was moving fast to get to Brazil to meet up with my sister Katie so I wasn't going to bother visiting too many big cities. For all of the bad news I had heard about Lima I really liked it. Granted I was only there for a day, and there were parts that weren't that beautiful, but overall I thought it was great. There were lots of good parks, the people were friendly for a big city, and there were a number of cool sights.

Walking out from the bus station I came across a beautiful flower market and impressive fountain park that wasn't open until the late afternoon. From there I made it to the city center where I had trouble with my camera so I went to a local camera store. Walking back I had an amazing plate of ceviche, dropped off my laundry and backpack at the laundromat then walked around downtown Lima. I saw the changing of the guard at the presidential palace, and then saw this group dressed in strange costumes advertising the carnival in Cajamarca, Peru.


























On my way to visit the the Monastery of San Francisco I found a great park highlighting the old wall that once protected the wealthy city from pirate attacks. Returning back to the Monastery I went i and was blown away. Unfortunately photography is prohibited in the Monastery turned museum, so I could only get away with taking a few non-flash photos. It's fun to be sneaky. So the monastery itself is an architectural treasure then it is full of gorgeous antiques and carvings. There is also a library housing books that are over 500 years old. They are just sitting there on display. some of them are huge with hand lettered sheepskin pages. The main and most gruesome attraction of the monastery are the catacombs below the church with thousands of bones sitting in bins and some arranged rather artistically. It is thought that there are as many as 70,000 skeletons contained within the catacombs! the Monastery is huge and most of it has been immaculately restored with the exception of the smaller church shown in the second photo.








The rest of the afternoon I walked around the center of Lima making way back to the fountain park to see the show later in th afternoon/evening. Along the way I found lots of great public spaces and people out enjoying the day.












The fountain park that I briefly saw earlier in the morning turned out to be an amazing sight, especially at night. There were more than a dozen large well lit fountains and all of them put together would put any fountain show in Las Vegas to shame. It was a terrific success as a public works project drawing more than 25,000 visitors on a weekend night. I was there on a week day and it was packed with people having a great time. I stayed for the first laser hologram show then hurried back to the center to pick up my laundry and backpack. From there I was off to the sand dunes of Ica four hours south of Lima.






























Wrenches as lion's main